What’s In March’s Skies

By Matt Woods

Planets:

All five naked-eye planets can be glimpsed in the morning sky. Mercury is low in the east, moving from Capricornus (The Sea-Goat) to the constellation of Aquarius (The Water Bearer) in the second week of the month. It’ll then disappear into the twilight after that.

Venus is in the east and it moves from the constellation of Sagittarius (The Archer) into the constellation of Capricornus in the second week of the month. In the first half of the month, Venus passes close to Mars and in the last week of March, Venus passes close to Saturn. At the beginning of March, Venus will rise at 02:40 am (AWST) and at the end of the month it will rise at 2:50 am (AWST). Venus will also have its greatest elongation in the East on the 20th of March.

Mars is in the east and it will move from the constellation of Sagittarius into the constellation of Capricornus at the end of the first week of the month. At the beginning of March, Mars will rise at 02:32 am (AWST) and at the end of the month it will rise at 2:22 am (AWST).

Jupiter is low in the east in the constellation of Aquarius in the second half of the month. By the end of March, Jupiter will rise at 04:57 am (AWST). Saturn is in the east in the constellation of Capricornus the whole of March. At the beginning of March, Saturn will set at 09:39 am (AWST) and by the end of the month, it will set at 07:45 pm (AWST).

Uranus can be found in the evening sky in the constellation of Aries (The Ram). At the beginning of March, Uranus will set at 09:39 am (AWST) and by the end of the month, it will set at 07:45 pm (AWST).

On the 28th and 29th of March there will be a conjunctions of the Moon, Venus, Mars and Saturns in the early morning.

The March Equinox:

On Sunday the 20th of March, The March Equinox occurs at 11:32 pm (AWST), marking the beginning of astronomical Spring for the Northern Hemisphere, and the start of Autumn for the Southern Hemisphere. This is an exact moment when the Sun’s declination equals 0 as seen from the Earth. The two points where the ecliptic or the imaginary path the Sun seem to trace out along the celestial sphere meets the celestial equator are known as the equinoctial points.

The Equinox (literally meaning ‘equal nights’ in Latin) means that night and day are nearly equal worldwide, and that the Sun rises due east of an observer on the equinox and sets due west.

Things To Look At This Month:

Beehive Cluster:

The Beehive Cluster (M44) is an open cluster of faint stars in the constellation of Cancer and it’s also known as Praesepe (Latin for “manger”). Galileo used the first astronomical telescope in 1609 to discover that it was in fact a collection of about 40 stars. We now know of 200 core stars, but there could be possibly up to 1000 stars in an extended area of nearly 3 Moon diameters.

The cluster is 15 light-years in diameter, and it is 550 light-years away from Earth. The cluster contains a high proportion of variable stars of age 500-700 million years, this age of the cluster and its proper motion also coincide with those of the Hyades cluster in the constellation of Taurus, which suggests they may share similar origins.

Messier 44

The Beehive Cluster