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Posts Tagged ‘Exoplanets’

Ephemeris: 03/27/2026 – Finding life out there

March 27, 2026 Comments off

This is Ephemeris for Friday, March 27th. Today the Sun will be up for 12 hours and 31 minutes, setting at 8:04, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:30. The Moon, 2 days past first quarter, will set at 5:39 tomorrow morning.

I have often been asked what I thought about life existing in the universe… besides the Earth of course. My answer is yes, I think there is life out there in the universe. There are more galaxies, stars and planets than we can possibly count, though when looking at exoplanets, we’re not finding much in the way of habitable planets. We have one example of life: the Earth and that’s what we look for. Our detection methods are too crude to be able to detect anything as small as the earth unless it’s orbiting a small red dwarf star. We seem to find a lot of large planets, that orbit extremely close to their stars because our detection methods depend on what they do to either block the light of a star or affect it gravitationally. The earth is almost too small to do either.

The astronomical event times given in this blog are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (Lat 44.7° N, Long 85.7° W; EST, UT – 5 hours) unless stated otherwise. Times will be different for other locations.

Addendum

The Kepler-62 stellar system, one of thousands of exoplanetary systems found in the last 31 years, These planets were discovered by the transit method, by passing in front of their star. The star itself is smaller and somewhat dimmer than the Sun, so the habitable zone is closer in. The planets are designated by lower case letters in order of their discovery. The time between transits determines their orbital distance, and the amount they decrease the star's light, their size. The two planets in the habitable zone, e and f, are considered super-earth's. They may or may not be rocky, depending on their density, which is related to their mass, which the transit method doesn't detect.
The Kepler-62 stellar system, one of thousands of exoplanetary systems found in the last 31 years, These planets were discovered by the transit method, by passing in front of their star. The star itself is smaller and somewhat dimmer than the Sun, so the habitable zone is closer in. The planets are designated by lower case letters in order of their discovery. The time between transits determines their orbital distance, and the amount they decrease the star’s light, their size. The two planets in the habitable zone, e and f, are considered super-earth’s. They may or may not be rocky, depending on their density, which is related to their mass, which the transit method doesn’t detect. Credit: JPL/NASA.
Categories: Ephemeris Program, Life in the universe Tags: ,

10/31/2018 – Ephemeris – The bright planets tonight

October 31, 2018 Comments off

Ephemeris for Halloween, Wednesday, October 31st. The Sun will rise at 8:19. It’ll be up for 10 hours and 13 minutes, setting at 6:32. The Moon, at last quarter today, will rise at 1:02 tomorrow morning.

Let’s look at the bright planets for tonight. Three of them are visible in the evening sky. Jupiter will be barely visible very low in the west-southwest after sunset. It will set at 7:30 p.m. Saturn, the ringed planet, will start the evening low in the south-southwestern sky and will set at 9:49 p.m. Mars will be low in the south-southeast as the skies darken tonight. and is now 73.2 million miles (117.9 million km) away. Mars will be due south at 8:39 p.m., and it will set at 1:33a.m. Mars is picking up speed moving eastward, crossing the constellation of Capricornus this month. It’s currently in eastern Capricornus. Venus, now a morning planet, will rise at 7:45 tomorrow morning, 34 minutes after the Sun.

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

Addendum

Evening planets
Evening planets at 8 p.m. October 31, 2018.  Click on image to enlarge.  Created using Stellarium.

Binocular Moon
The waning crescent Moon as it should appear tomorrow morning in binoculars. Created using Stellarium.
Saturn and Mars with the same magnification at 8 p.m. Created using Cartes du Ciel (Sky Charts).
Stars and planets from sunset to sunrise
Planets and the Moon at sunset and sunrise of a single night starting with sunset on the right on October 31, 2018. The night ends on the left with sunrise on November 1st. Click on the image to enlarge. Created using my LookingUp program.

 

Update

I know, the content above isn’t very spooky for Halloween.  However, NASA came to the rescue with their Halloween Special: Universe of Monsters.  Fitting with our theme today, it’s about planets… of the Exo variety.  Click here!

Categories: Ephemeris Program, Planets Tags: , , , , , ,