Minnesota Starwatch

University of Minnesota

Department of Astronomy

Minnesota Starwatch for January 2004
[Starwatch Logo]

Starwatch Newsletter

Minnesota Starwatch is a newsletter describing the night sky in the Midwest.

It is updated monthly, and is produced by the
Department of Astronomy, University of Minnesota
116 Church Street SE, Minneapolis, MN 55455

Minnesota Starwatch for January 2004

Happy New Year from Minnesota Starwatch!

The cold nights of early January offer some of the clearest skies around. They're great for seeing in the new year with some star-gazing. So grab your warmest parka and get out there for a splendid heavenly show.

Early in the month, you'll have a wonderful chance to see the planet Mercury just above the Southeast horizon. You'll have to be an early riser to catch it, though, since the best viewing opportunities come just at dawn close to 7 AM.

Later in the month comes a stunning conjunction of the crescent New Moon and Venus. Look for it about 15 degrees above the Southwest to West-Southwest horizon. Best days for viewing come right at the start of the St. Paul Winter Carnival. Take a moment around 7 PM on January 23, 24, and 25th to lift your gaze from the wonders of this year's Ice Palace to catch the celestial show.

Venus will put on a lovely show this month, but the undisputed January king of the Heavens is Saturn. It rises at sunset throughout the month and will remain visible all night long. Saturn is brighter than it's been in a quarter century. Try to get to a telescope this month for a spectacular view of its rings.

This month will provide your best views of Saturn for the next 29 years, that is, from here on earth. But the Cassini space probe is now speeding toward Saturn and is due to arrive in July. Then we can expect to get some of the best views ever of this spectacular planet and its rings. So take advantage of Saturn's closeness to the earth this month, and get out to look at the planet and its rings through a telescope.

The Cassini space probe is only the latest in a long string of missions to explore space that began, for the United States, this month 46 years ago. January 31st marks the 46th anniversary of the launch of Explorer I, the first American satellite to orbit the earth.

Explorer I was the craft that put America back in the space race after the Soviet Union had stunned the world with its surprise launch of Sputnik a few months earlier. Explorer I was the brainchild of an extraordinary scientist named Wernher Von Braun, a man of whom it can be said truthfully that he understood all of the many sorts of power it takes to get a rocket off the ground.

Von Braun was a German rocket enthusiast in the 1920s. Although he and other German scientists and engineers had experimented privately, it wasn't until the Nazis came to power in 1933 that German rocket science really took off. The Nazis were interested in the military potential of rockets, and Von Braun was happy to oblige. At the age of 21, he became the head of the German program to develop long-range missiles, ultimately known as the V-2 rockets. Twelve years later, the fruits of his research were raining down over the inhabitants of London in the last days of World War II.

At the end of the war, as the Russian army approached von Braun's rocket development facility in northern Germany, von Braun engineered a quick trip south through Germany in order to surrender to the American forces. His efforts were then rewarded by the other side, as we Americans soon put him in charge of designing our military rockets.

Over a decade later when the Russians launched Sputnik, Von Braun got the chance he'd waited for since he was a teenager in Germany. Explorer I and many succeeding generations of manned and unmanned space flight were the result. Friday night telescope viewing at the U's Astronomy Department begins at 8pm. Please call (612) 626-0034 for more information.

Minnesota Starwatch is available on-line at http://www.astro.umn.edu

For fun Astronomy Outreach programs'check out our Public Outreach link, or if your interested in how you can help build the new Minnesota Planetarium, please call 612-630-6151 or visit http://www.mplanetarium.org.

Como Planetarium is offering fun family shows about astronomy on a limited basis; please call 651-293-5398 for more info! This has been Minnesota Starwatch, produced by the University of Minnesota Astronomy Department.