Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Thursday, January 8th.  The sun will rise at 8:19.  It’ll be up for 9 hours even, setting at 5:19.   The moon, 4 days past full, will rise at 9:08 this evening.

The planets Venus and Mercury are closing their positions in the southwest in the early evening.  They will appear their closest Saturday.  For the last few years these two planets without natural satellites have hosted an artificial satellite each.  Venus is orbited by the European Space Agency’s Venus Express spacecraft since 2006.  Just a few weeks ago it’s fuel tanks ran dry, so it could no longer point its solar panels toward the sun and antenna toward the earth.  It will soon plunge into Venus’ thick atmosphere.  A like fate will also befall the MESSENGER spacecraft now orbiting close to Mercury.  It took 7 years to get to Mercury and so far orbited it for nearly 4 years.  It too is running out of fuel and will soon crash on the planet.

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

Addendum

Animation of the Quasi-conjunction of Venus and Mercury. Time span 1/05/2015 to 1/15/2015 at 7 p.m. Created by Bob Moler using Stellarium and GIMP.

Artist rendition of Venus Express at Venus. Credit: ESA/AP.

MESSENGER spacecraft at Mercury an artist’s concept. Credit NASA/JPL/APL.