TGT #25L - Who's Throwing Rocks at the Solar System?? - Quiet Sky But Not For Long - Star Names But Not On Stars
TGT 7/16/25: AEL--Stars for a Journey; SPC--A Meteor Shower Within a Moonless Night, Jupiter Returns, Mars and Mercury Are Set to Go; TJI--Space Rocks, Debris, Hitting Everywhere!
Cover Photo - Unscheduled Target: Moon
In This Issue:
Cover Photo — Unscheduled Target: Moon
This Just In - Why is Everybody Throwing Rocks at the Moon and Planets?? And From Where?
Welcome to Issue #25L!
Sky Planning Calendar —
* Moon-Gazing - Moon Passes 5 Planets, Two Bright Stars and a Cluster
* Observing—Plan-et - A Decent “Practice” Meteor Shower
* Calendar SummaryAstronomy in Everyday Life - Rare Stars on Earth
Welcome to The Galactic Times Inbox Magazine #25L!
Greetings, Galactic Timers!
And you thought the sky was serene. ….
Nope, there are not only thousands of collisions every year of space rocks hitting our protective (whew!) atmosphere, but recently we’ve had notice of such rocks hitting other worlds, some such events never before seen. Also, we seem to be getting into the space-missions-as-debris business, and that presents far more dangers to Earth denizens than Big Rocks From Space have done since the Cretaceous Era. (Here’s a spoiler alert—not all of that metallic debris may be terrestrial in origin.) See This Just In.
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The sky is in one of those calm-before-the-storm quiet moods. Two planets are all but gone from view. The dawn has a photogenic display of two planets, the Moon, and the imaginary line-drawings that make up Taurus the Bull, but not much else. That changes the end of July and into August, when Saturn moves into evening view, Jupiter and Venus pair up close, and the first of the last-half-of-the-year major meteor showers (well, not so major this one), the Delta Aquarids, gets active. Read Sky Planning Calendar below.
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Speaking of stars and terrestrial objects, Astronomy in Everyday Life tells a story made from (the few known) commercial things and places that are actually named for stars. Specific stars. Can you add any to the story?
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Publisher — Dr. Larry Krumenaker Email: newsletter@thegalactictimes.com
This Just In
Why is Everybody Throwing Rocks at the Moon and Planets?? And From Where?
Every day around the Earth, about 8000 space ‘things’ strike the planet, ultimately adding tons to the Earth. Some are visible as meteors—falling stars—shooting stars. Most of the material more or less floats down to the Earth’s surface as micrometeorites, and most of those end up in oceans, gone for good.
But there are new categories of things hitting Solar System’s bodies. And not all of them natural.
Let’s take the natural ones first.
Who’s Hitting Giant Planets?
Were you around to remember when Comet Shoemaker-Levy broke into multiple pieces and struck just south of Jupiter’s equator in July 1994, leaving black smudges that eventually were destroyed by the planet’s winds? The above photo was taken July 5, almost exactly 31 years later to the day after Jupiter was hit. Only this flash was recorded on Saturn. It is currently unconfirmed and a call to astrophotographers was made to find other photos of the hit. If so, this would be the first time such an event has been recorded on Saturn.
An Early ‘Message’ from Mercury?
CNN reported this week that two meteorites found in Africa in 2023 may be the first true samples of the planet Mercury. And, to everyone’s surprise, it may have come from INSIDE the planet, not its surface.
Only two probes have ever gone to Mercury. The first was Mariner 10 back in 1973 (for more information on Mercury and probes there, see the Hermograph Press pages on the planet at https://www.hermograph.com/science/mercury1.htm ). It flew by several times, took photos mostly of one half of the planet, and ran out of power. The MESSENGER probe launched in the early 2000s, reached the planet around 2010, eventually was slowed down into an captured orbit around Mercury, and observed it for years until it was deliberately crashed into the planet in 2015. An ESA mission, BepiColombo is retracing MESSENGER’s slow route and will arrive late next year. It, too, will orbit the planet, after separating into two smaller probes. None of these have or had landers, which is likely best as the surface on the day side is hundreds of degrees hot.
But MESSENGER did have spectrometers that used the observed light off the surface to analyse the composition of Mercury. It was found to be iron-poor—that metal almost non-existent—and lots of sulfur. Ditto the rocks found in Africa, all minerals in common with Mercury except for two things. One, they don’t have much plagioclase minerals, which have been identified as a large component of Mercury’s surface. Two, when dated in the laboratory, the meteorites are older than the surface of Mercury. A tentative conclusion is that these rocks come from underneath the surface, the mantle layer. But the dating of the little world’s surface is tentative at best as is its surface composition. More research is needed.
Mars’ Surface Got Marred for Christmas
Okay, not exactly recent; we’re talking Christmas Eve *2021*. But this one was detected as a Mars-quake and for the first time a new crater on Mars’ surface was located. Mars has numerous quakes, some of which may be from space rocks landing but their ‘landing zones’ have never been detected until this one now.
In the photo above you can see the crater, about 500 feet long and 70 or so feet deep, came from the collision by an object moving from left to right across the image; the ground slope and excavated sides clearly showing an low inclined projectile. The white debris all around it was (once) underground water ice.
Who cares? Because there may be more coming, and from Earth. Astronomers want to know what the results would be like.
Space Crash 2032
You may recall the tempest late last year (what IS IT with events happening around Christmas???) regarding the Near Earth Asteroid 2024 YR4, which was advertised to possibly hit the Earth soon, before more observations and a better defined orbit made those chances essentially nil.
But wait! There’s MORE!
Ooops. We forgot to check on the orbital path with regard to — the Moon. Latest predictions give the rock about a 4% chance of hitting Luna, which would quite likely making a spectacular sky event if so. Right before Christmas 2032—that’s seven years and some months from now (Christmas time again! Hold on to your Mars Crater Christmas hats!?). (See the Cover Photo.)
However, what concerns NASA and others more is the fact that this ~60 meters, or about 200 feet in diameter, space rock hitting the Moon would spray many tons of lunar surface into space. That ejecta would reside in 1) lunar orbits—a danger to lunar probes and manned landing sites….and 2) some would escape into trans-lunar space towards Earth. And THAT is a concern because all that material could wreak havoc and likely destruction on the thousands of Low Earth Orbit (LEO) satellites, such as communications, StarLink and other constellations of satellites, space stations, etc.
The Moon’s UNnatural Colliding Objects
Rocks aren’t the only things hitting the Moon. There are suddenly plans for LMO (Low Moon Orbit) satellite constellations around the Moon. The lunar surface as well as orbital heights will get increasingly debris filled even more than it has already been cratered by no-longer-usable spaceship parts (service modules, boosters, failed missions crash-landing). A veritable museum of terrestrial metals and parts.
But wait there’s more! In addition to the “what do we do with these things issue”, one scientist at the recent Royal Astronomical Society meeting thinks trawling the lunar surface will reveal other metallic debris—from extra-terrestrial civilizations. Seriously.
To be continued in the next issue of The Galactic Times.
Sky Planning Calendar
Moon-Gazing
Moon passages by a star, planet or deep sky object are a good way to find a planet or other object if you’ve never located it before.
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July 16 (corrected) The Moon passes 3°North of Uranus, and 4° North of Saturn, almost simultaneously. Saturn will be the easier to see, though because of the lunar brightness binoculars will help even at that distance from the Moon.
July 17 Last Quarter Moon.
July 20 In the dawn, the Moon rides technically North of the Pleiades but in fact, because the star cluster is 1.5° in size, the half-degree Moon rides among the cluster’s stars. It does so at its largest apparent size, too, as on this day the Moon reaches Perigee, its closest distance to Earth this month.
July 21 Not an especially interesting or photogenic view, in fact, not listed in most sources even AS a conjunction, but you can find Venus this morning 7° from the crescent Moon.
July 22-23 Jupiter is passed a bit closer by the Moon than Venus just did, 5°. But the three objects on this date make a nice and pretty (and large) obtuse triangle, the planets being the triangle’s nearly 20° base. The crescent Moon on this dawn is at its northern-most possible position, near the Summer Solstice (Northern Hemisphere, Winter for Southerners) point in Gemini.
July 24 New Moon.
July 26 Find the Lion’s Heart 1.3° South of the Moon….except in Iceland and the Sea to its east. There the Moon passes over the Heart Star, Regulus.
July 28 Mars is passed by the Moon by 1.3°, too.
July 30-31 Around midnight between these dates, Spica does it better, only 1° from the Moon.
Observing---Plan-et
==A Good Meteor Shower to Practice On Before the Big Ones==
==The Modern Planets (Uranus and Neptune) Can Be Found With Brighter Worlds==
==Jupiter Returns to Darkness, Saturn an Almost-All-Nighter Now==
Mercury, fading fast, drops into the solar twilight glare and becomes too hard to find after July 20.
Venus rises about an hour before morning twilight begins. It had entered the pattern of Taurus—its V-shaped head made by the Hyades star cluster, ending eastward with its two horn stars at the larger end of Taurus’ “V”—on the 13th but flits like a firefly between its horns, exiting through them on the 27th. Test your constellation knowledge with this!
In between, the Moon passes quite far from the bright planet by 7° on the 21st.
Venus is rushing headlong eastward, not only to avoid being lost in the twilight like Mercury but to have a brilliant double-star conjunction with second-brightest planet Jupiter next month.
Earth gets to start its second-half-of-the-year parade of meteor showers with a precursor to the usually magnificent August Perseids with the Delta Aquarids. Not a spectacular shower, only 20 per hour max and then only if you are in the Southern Hemisphere, but it is reliable, it lasts for four days on either side of its July 29th peak, the meteor streaks are often long because the radiant from which they come from is always so low in Northern skies.
It is a good shower to get out your meteor watching gear: clipboard to plot the meteor paths on a star chart, or just tally how many you see per hour; good lounge chair, drink and food receptacles and storage, red flashlights so you don’t night-blind yourself, audio equipment to keep you awake with music, a blanket or sleeping bag because lying still on even a warm night can get you feeling chilly, and a clock to start and end your observation hours.
Mars sets a mere 15 minutes after twilight ends at month-end. Essentially your last chance to see Mars in a dark sky; even though it makes a nice 1st-magnitude star, it is otherwise visually and telescopically unimpressive now. The Moon passes by on the 28th.
Jupiter rises in the dark sky of the East after the 26th, becoming a second bright morning star after Venus. The two have a reunion next month. The Moon gets there first, passing Jupiter on the night of the 22nd-23rd, making a big flat triangle with Venus.
Saturn is the dominant evening star now, rising at month-end a half-hour after evening twilight ends. On the 16th it is close by both the Moon and the dim planet Neptune a degree away. It becomes an all-nighter of a planet in September.
Calendar Summary
16 The Moon passes both Saturn and Neptune.
17 LAST QUARTER MOON.
20 The Moon passes through the Pleiades star cluster in the dawn. PERIGEE, too. Say goodbye to Mercury, now too close to the Sun.
21 The Moon passes far from Venus, 7°.
22-23 Jupiter about 5° from the Moon and nearly 20° from Venus in a large flat triangle.
24 NEW MOON.
26 Moon passes Regulus in Leo the Lion. Jupiter rises at start of dawn today and earlier each succeeding day.
27 Venus passes through the horns of Taurus.
28 Mars passed by Moon.
29 Peak of the Delta Aquarid meteor shower, which starts to be evident four days earlier, sticks around 4 more days. Best this dawn, no moon after 11PM, gets best by the start of twilight.
30-31 The Moon passes by spring star Spica.
Astronomy in Everyday Life
Recently traveling, I spotted this rare thing…the use of a star *name* in a product: Polaris Apartments, in the Atlanta metro area.
The word “star” and many other celestial objects get used—the Moon, the Sun, specific planets, constellations—but in my collection of many AEL usages, I could only add five more.
We will let this place be the starting point for a hypothetical journey by plane. Flights can be long; you might want some reading material from this store, viewed in Augusta, GA this past year.
You also need some food! Here is some place to get good authentic Italian food (I went here, in the outskirts of Birmingham, AL, can vouch for it).
For the record, Capella in Italian actually comes from their word for “chapel.” But Capella, the star with that name, gets its meaning from Latin, for the “she-goat”, the mother star for a set of stars nearby known as the Kids (baby goats, not human-variety). I was not aware that Italian and Latin are not apparently closely enough related linguistically, considering they both originated on the same peninsula.
Anyway, after flying over the Atlantic, one star will apparently get you to some places you want to go to, near Frankfurt, Germany.
Here is an advertisement that popped up unexpectedly in the middle of a story on my phone! Could be useful on those long European bus trips?
Alas, only naval personnel could get a ride on THIS vessel.
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All but Polaris are stars of the first magnitude (or, technically, even brighter as in 0th and negative magnitudes). Arcturus is a yellow-orange star, Capella, a Sun-like (but much larger!) yellow, and all the others blue or white. I guess that means if you want to name something after a star, try anything but the brightest blue stars!