PLANETS IN JANUARY

Press, Volume XCVIII, Issue 28783, 2 January 1959, Page 3

PLANETS IN JANUARY

I Specially written for ‘The Press”) IBy K W ROTH)

Though Venus is again in the evening sky for the next eight months, it wil] be many weeks before it catches the eye. The reason is that Venus comes more and more into a northerly part of its apparent daily orbit. At the beginning of the year Venus sets barely 40 minutes after the sun, and it gains only another 15 minutes m visibility in the course of the month. Therefore it is not easily glimpsed near the horizon to the right of the e pot where the sunset occurred.

Mars is the only planet oi the evening sky after nightfall. It has lost its brilliance, and is now surpassed in brightness by Sirius, the brightest of the fixed stars. However, it is easily recognised by its ruddy colour and steady light. It is in the north moderately low, not far from the Pleyades, the best kppwn of all star clusters.

As Mars recedes from the Earth at the rate of 400,000 miles a day or 17,000 miles an hour, its disc as seen through a small telescope becomes smaller and smaller. However, the polar ice cap should be seen better now than during December and November. The disc is not round at present out oblate like the moon about three days after its full phase. Jupiter reappears as a bright morning star in the eastern sky. It rises well south of due east at 1.14 a.m. and 12.22 a.m on January 16 and 31 respectively. On the morning of January 12 Saturn and Mercury are' within one degree in the same direction of the sky, but since both rise only one hour twenty minutes earlier than the sun, it is only with difficulty that they may be found at 4 a.m. near the horizon, about 20 degrees of due east, Mercury being the brighter. During the weeks following, Saturn will gain in visibility, while Mercury will again be lost from sight.