2010 March Skies

March begins with the Moon just past full phase, joining Saturn in the sky all through the night. On March 17, Venus shares the evening twilight with a very new Moon, the next night the Moon will be above bright Venus and perhaps easier to detect; on the 20th the Pleiades (Seven Sisters) is within one degree of the Moon; by the 23rd, Luna shares the sky with the star cluster M35. The next full Moon is on March 30.

Mercury is coming out from behind the Sun at the beginning of the month. By the time the Moon reaches first quarter on the 23rd, Mercury joins Venus in the west just after sundown. Many people have never seen Mercury in their lives – this is one of the best opportunities to see the fleet planet as it catches up with Venus and the two of them put on an evening show, which lasts right through to late April.
Venus, as mentioned above, is well placed as the Evening Star for the rest of the spring and right through summer. Many cultures in the past viewed Venus as a thing of beauty, associating the planet with love and desire, and with the Greek goddess Aphrodite. The ancients raised temples of worship to her. Little did they know that the cloud-enshrouded planet is a hellish place of extreme temperatures and high atmospheric pressure – 90 times greater than on Earth! Several spacecraft launched by the former Soviet Union actually landed on the surface and transmitted images for a few seconds before their camera circuitry failed. The extreme heat melted the solder!
Mars is in retrograde motion for the first 11 days of March, returning to proper motion thereafter. As Earth pulls away from the Red Planet, its apparent size shrinks from 12 to 9 arcseconds. Mars reaches aphelion (furthest distance in its orbit from the Sun) on the 30th.
Jupiter has been behind the Sun for a month or more, reappearing in the eastern sky at daybreak after mid-month. The angle of the ecliptic is low and favours viewers in the Southern Hemisphere, so we won’t get much of a show until later in the year.
Saturn is visible most of the night, rising in the east around 9 p.m., and crossing the sky all night, setting at daybreak.
Uranus is behind the Sun.
Neptune, not much of a sight at the best of times, reappears from behind the Sun, but just like Jupiter, barely clears the horizon before the Sun’s glare brightens into daylight.

James Edgar has had an interest in the night sky all his life. He joined the Royal Astronomical Society of Canada in 2000 and quickly became involved in the Society. He is Editor’s Assistant and a contributor to the renowned Observer’s Handbook, Production Manager of the bi-monthly RASC Journal, and is the Society’s National Secretary.