Wyoming Skies: June brings summer solstice and constellations in every direction
And almost overhead you can see the Big Dipper, the most well-known group of stars in Ursa Major. If you follow the arc of the handle of the Big Dipper you'll run into the brilliant star Arcturus. Arcturus marks the bottom of Boötes, a constellation that looks like a kite or ice cream cone. If you continue the arc from the handle of the Big Dipper, you'll hit another bright star, that is Spica in the constellation Virgo. And follow that curve to Corvus, a quadrilateral-shape group of stars.
Facing west you'll see the twin stars of Gemini, Pollux and Castor, above the horizon. They'll slip toward the horizon more each day. And higher in the sky, you can see the spring constellation of Leo. It's easily picked out by locating the Sickle, a group of stars that look like a backward question mark. The bright star at the bottom of the Sickle is Regulus.
If you look to the south, you can see two constellations very close to the horizon; Scorpius resembles a fishhook or the letter 'J,' and Sagittarius is obvious as a group of stars that resembles an old-fashioned teapot. And here's a fun fact, the spout of the Teapot it is pointing toward the center of our Milky Way galaxy.
Finally, when you face east you will see a definite sign that summer is here because the Summer Triangle shines brightly in the sky. The Summer Triangle is made up of these three bright stars: Vega in Lyra, Deneb in Cygnus, and Altair in Aquila.
Under dark skies, you'll see the Milky Way arching up from the northeast horizon, starting under Cassiopeia, passing overhead through Cygnus and Aquila, finally ending up in the south going through Sagittarius and Scorpius. What's cool about the Milky Way is that this glowing patch of stars, gas and dust is a spiral arm of our galaxy.
In order of brightness in the evening sky you will find: Mercury, Arcturus, Vega, Capella, Altair, Antares, Spica, Pollux, Deneb, Regulus and Mars.
Planets this month are split between the evening and morning sky. In the June evening sky, look for Mars as a steady red light slowly moving across the stars of Leo. Mars will be closest to the bright star Regulus on the evening of June 16. Jupiter has dominated the evening sky for months, but is challenging to spot in the bright western twilight and will slip away toward the beginning of the month. It's being replaced by Mercury emerging in the evening sky about 30-40 minutes after sunset. Mercury will reach its greatest distance from the sun on July 4.
Morning observers can catch brilliant Venus before dawn; it reached its greatest distance from the sun at the end of May. Golden Saturn is higher in the sky than Venus and will move away from Venus each day.
The moon is a great way to locate stars and planets. The moon is near Mars on the evening of June 1, and will float near Saturn on the mornings of June 18 and 19. Then it visits Venus on the mornings of June 21 and 22. Then it will move back to the evening sky, so the moon will float near Mercury on June 26 and will pay Mars another visit on the evening of June 29.
The full moon of June occurs overnight on June 10-11. It's the Full Strawberry Moon — named to coincide with the abundance of strawberries harvested this month — and will lie near the bright star Antares in Scorpius the Scorpion. The full moon will be visible all night.
A fun trio to look for on the evenings around June 24 is Mercury forming a line with Pollux and Castor in the evening twilight. Binoculars might help spot them.
There is a meteor shower this month that might be worth watching for before dawn on the morning of June 7. It's the daytime Arietids. They are the most active daytime meteor shower, but how can you watch for them in the daytime? Its radiant — or point where the meteors seem to originate — rises before the sun. So you might catch meteors shooting up from the horizon before dawn. How fun would that be to see?
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Digital Trends
4 hours ago
- Digital Trends
NASA's skywatching tips for July include an ‘eagle'
NASA is back with its monthly roundup on what to look out for in the skies over the coming weeks. And there's plenty to enjoy. The planets take center stage this month, with July offering a great chance to view Mercury, Mars, Saturn, Venus, and Jupiter. You'll be able to see Mercury for a brief period following sunset during the first week of July. Cast your gaze very low in the west 30 to 45 minutes after sundown. Mercury sets within the hour after that, so be sure to carefully pinpoint it before it vanishes from view. Next up, Mars. The red planet will be visible for the first hour or two after it gets dark. 'You'll find it sinking lower in the sky each day and looking a bit dimmer over the course of the month, as our two planets' orbits carry them farther apart,' NASA says in its latest roundup video (top), adding that the crescent moon will appear right next to Mars on July 28. The space agency also notes that July marks the 60th anniversary of the first successful flyby of Mars, by NASA's Mariner 4 spacecraft. During the mission, Mariner 4 also became the first spacecraft to beam back photos of another planet. Saturn — the sixth planet from the sun and the second largest planet in our solar system — rises late in the evening this month, and by dawn appears high overhead to the south. Meanwhile, Venus — our brightest planet — will be shining brightly throughout the month, making it easy to spot. However, you'll have to wake up early as it's only viewable a couple of hours before sunrise, toward the east. Last but not least, Jupiter — the largest planet in our solar system — will be rising in the hour before sunrise and appearing a little higher with each passing day. NASA also points out that July and August is an excellent chance to view the constellation Aquila, also known as the eagle as its star pattern resembles an eagle in flight. 'This time of year, it soars high into the sky in the first half of the night,' NASA says. adding that to find it, first locate its brightest star, Altair. 'It's one of the three bright stars in the Summer Triangle, which is super easy to pick out during summer months in the Northern Hemisphere. Altair is the second brightest of the three, and sits at the southernmost corner of the triangle.' Check out the video for more details — including helpful images — on how to view Aquila and also the planets.
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
World's biggest Mars rock could sell for $4 million
Sign up for CNN's Wonder Theory science newsletter. Explore the universe with news on fascinating discoveries, scientific advancements and more. A meteorite that is the largest known piece of Mars on Earth is expected to fetch up to $4 million when it goes up for auction later this month. Known as NWA 16788, the meteorite weighs 54 pounds (24.5 kilograms), massive compared with most Martian meteorites, which tend to be small fragments, auction house Sotheby's said in a statement published Tuesday. Meteorites are what's left when a comet, asteroid or a meteoroid survives its passage through the earth's atmosphere. Discovered in November 2023 in the remote Agadez region of Niger, NWA 16788 is a 'monumental specimen' that is around 70% larger than the next biggest piece of Mars ever found on Earth, according to Sotheby's. It is also incredibly rare: only around 400 Martian meteorites have ever been found on Earth. 'NWA 16788 is a discovery of extraordinary significance — the largest Martian meteorite ever found on Earth, and the most valuable of its kind ever offered at auction,' Cassandra Hatton, vice chairman of science and natural history at Sotheby's, said in the statement. 'Weathered by its journey through space and time, its immense size and unmistakable red color sets it apart as a once-in-a-generation find. This remarkable meteorite provides a tangible connection to the red planet — our celestial neighbor that has long captured the human imagination,' she added. Analysis of the meteorite's internal composition has revealed that it was probably removed from the Martian surface and blasted into space by an asteroid impact that was so powerful it turned parts of the meteorite into glass. A glassy crust can also be seen on its surface, formed as it hurtled through Earth's atmosphere, according to Sotheby's. The meteorite will go under the hammer at Sotheby's New York on July 16. For some, the fact that the meteorite is being sold rather than donated to science is cause for concern. 'It would be a shame if it disappeared into the vault of an oligarch. It belongs in a museum, where it can be studied, and where it can be enjoyed by children and families and the public at large,' Steve Brusatte, a professor of paleontology and evolution at Scotland's University of Edinburgh, told CNN on Wednesday. But for Julia Cartwright, a planetary scientist and Independent Research Fellow in the Institute for Space/School of Physics & Astronomy at the University of Leicester, England, there is a balance to be struck. 'Ultimately, if there was no market for searching, collecting and selling meteorites, we would not have anywhere near as many in our collections — and this drives the science!' she told CNN on Wednesday, describing a 'symbiotic relationship' between researchers and collectors. 'If samples weren't being found, we would not have anywhere near as much to study, and so wouldn't know as much as we do,' added Cartwright. While she believes it would be great if this 'really fabulous rock' were to be studied or displayed for the public to see, Cartwright underlined that a reference sample from the meteorite has been saved at the Purple Mountain Observatory in China. While we don't know where the meteorite will end up after the auction, Cartwright believes that 'the scientific interest will remain, and the new owner may be very interested in learning from it, so we may still gather lots of science from this,' she said. In February 2021, a Martian meteorite with the planet's atmosphere entrapped in it went under the hammer at Christie's auction house. It sold for $200,000, far above its pre-auction estimate of $30,000-50,000.
Yahoo
7 hours ago
- Yahoo
The secret of why Mars grew cold and dry may be locked away in its rocks
When you buy through links on our articles, Future and its syndication partners may earn a commission. The discovery by the Mars rovers of carbonate in sedimentary rock on the Red Planet has enabled planetary scientists to rewind the clock and tell the tale of how Mars' warmer, watery climate 3.5 billion years ago changed to the barren, dry and cold environment that it is today. We know that, in the distant past, Mars was warmer than it is today and had liquid water on its surface. We can see evidence for this in the form of ancient river channels, deltas, lakes and even the eroded coastlines of a large sea in the north. Sometime in the past 3.5 billion years, Mars' atmosphere thinned and its water either froze or was lost to space. The question is, how did that happen? NASA's MAVEN – Mars Atmosphere and Volatile EvolutioN – mission arrived at the Red Planet in 2014 charged with studying the loss rate of Mars' atmospheric molecules to space. However, scientists know that the carbon in Mars' atmosphere, mostly in the form of carbon dioxide, cannot have been mostly lost to space. That's because the lighter carbon-12 would preferentially escape rather than the marginally heavier carbon-13 (the difference between the two being one extra neutron), but we don't see an excess of carbon-13 in Mars' atmosphere today. The alternative is that Mars' atmospheric carbon must have rained out of the atmosphere and subsequently been locked away in the ground, in the form of carbonates embedded in sedimentary rock. The trouble is, searches for carbonates on Mars had always found nothing, until relatively recently. Both current Mars rover missions – Curiosity climbing Mount Sharp in Gale crater and Perseverance exploring the river delta in Jezero Crater – have discovered carbonates, in the sedimentary rock that form Mount Sharp, and stretching tens of kilometers along the rim of Jezero. Because carbon dioxide is a greenhouse gas, it can therefore regulate a planet's climate. Losing that carbon dioxide as it transforms into carbonate rocks would have had a drastic effect on Mars' climate. To determine just how drastic, planetary scientists led by Edwin Kite of the University of Chicago modeled how losing its atmospheric carbon in carbonate rocks has affected how Mars' climate has changed over the past 3.5 billion years. This is coupled with the increase in solar luminosity as the sun brightens with age (in just over a billion years' time the sun will be too luminous and hot for life on Earth to survive). As the sun grew hotter, it breathed more heat onto Mars, increasing the planet's average temperature. This led to more precipitation, causing the carbon dioxide to rain out and become locked away as carbonate. With the loss of the carbon dioxide's greenhouse effects, Mars cooled and grew drier. Intermittent spells of high temperatures and shallow liquid water were caused by orbital variations, similar to the Milankovitch cycles on Earth, which are periodic variations in the shape of Earth's orbit and the tilt of our planet's axis caused by the gravitational forces of the other planets, and which affect our long-term climate. The difference between Earth and Mars is that our planet has been able to manage a continuous outgassing of carbon dioxide, mostly from volcanism, to maintain its presence in our atmosphere. Mars, which is about half the diameter of Earth, lost heat from its core more rapidly, which slowed down and ultimately – as far as we can tell – stopped Mars' volcanic activity. With no active volcanoes, or at least very few, there was nothing to replenish the carbon dioxide in the atmosphere. These findings help explain the geological evidence of subsequent but increasingly less frequent bursts of liquid water on the surface of Mars during the past 3.5 billion years. RELATED STORIES — Early visions of Mars: Meet the 19th-century astronomer who used science fiction to imagine the Red Planet — Is the US forfeiting its Red Planet leadership to China's Mars Sample Return plan? — NASA's Curiosity rover takes a closer look at 'spiderwebs' on Mars | Space photo of the day for July 1, 2025 There is one caveat, which is that the study assumes that the abundance of carbonates at Gale crater is typical of the entire Red Planet. Carbonate samples need to be identified in many locations before we can say for sure that this was how Mars lost its greenhouse gas. The research is published in Nature.
