Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Friday, March 23rd.  The sun will rise at 7:39.  It’ll be up for 12 hours and 20 minutes, setting at 7:59.   The moon, 1 day past new, will set at 9:27 this evening.

The thin crescent moon is moving away from the setting sun in the west.  By Sunday evening it will be to the upper right of Jupiter.  In the moon’s monthly journey around the sun it passes each of the planets in turn, because the moon, earth and most of the planets lie very close to the same plane.  The sun and the solar system condensed out of a cloud which spun in a flat disk.  The sun had the most mass and began to glow as a star.  The other material accreted into protoplanets, then into larger planets.  Spiral galaxies also have this flattened appearance.  It is the reason the Kepler satellite can pick up so many exoplanets around other stars. Of the tiny fraction of stellar planetary planes tilted our way, there can be multiple planets found in each.

* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Jupiter and Moon march 25, 2012 at 10:15 p.m.. Created using Stellarium.