Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

This is Bob Moler with Ephemeris for Tuesday, February 4th. Today the Sun will be up for 9 hours and 58 minutes, setting at 5:56, and it will rise tomorrow at 7:56. The Moon, 1 day before first quarter, will set at 1:55 tomorrow morning.

On January 15th a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket launched 2 missions, at one time, to land on the Moon They will arrive at the Moon months apart. The first to attempt to land is Firefly’s Blue Ghost Lander with a mission called Ghost Riders in the Sky. It is currently spending about a month in Earth orbit before heading out to the Moon, which will take four days and spend another two weeks orbiting the Moon before attempting to land in the small area called Mare Crisium, the Sea of Crises. The second Lander by the Japanese company ispace, called Resilience, will take a more circuitous route to the moon, flying by it later this month and then coming back to the Moon several months later to enter orbit and then finally land on Mare Frigoris, the Cold Sea. So the two missions will not be active on the Moon at the same time.

The astronomical event times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan (EST, UT – 5 hours). Times will be different for other locations.

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