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What are some of the highlights of observing the sky in October 2020? Not one, but two full moons; Mars in opposition; and find the Andromeda galaxy.
Video transcript:
What happens in October? A harvest moon and a blue moon, Mars is up all night and a journey beyond the galaxy …
This month brings not just one, but two full moons, at the beginning and end of the month. The full moon on October 1 is called the Harvest Moon. The Harvest Moon is the name for the full moon that occurs closer to the September equinox. (One of two days per year when day and night are the same length.) Most years, the Harvest Moon falls in September, but changes to October every few years. The name goes back to both Native American and European traditions related, unsurprisingly, to harvest time.
At the end of October, on the 31st, we will enjoy a second full moon. When there are two full moons in a month, the second is often called a blue moon. (There is another more traditional definition of blue moon, but this is the best known.) Keep in mind that this is the only month of two full moons in 2020!
October is a good time to see Mars, as the planet is visible all night at this time and reaches its highest point in the sky around midnight. This period of excellent visibility coincides with the event known as opposition, which occurs approximately every two years, when Mars is directly on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun. This is also the time when Mars and Earth move closer together. orbits, which means the Red Planet is brightest in the sky, so don’t miss out.
Spacecraft from various nations are currently en route to Mars, including POTThe Mars 2020 mission, which is scheduled to land there in February.
Finally, this month, it is a good time to try to detect the Andromeda galaxy. Andromeda is also known as M31. It is a spiral galaxy similar in appearance to our own. Milky Way, but a little bigger. Both contain hundreds of billions of stars and (we believe) trillions of planets. Now we cannot see the general shape of the Milky Way, because we are inside it,
so Andromeda gives us an idea of what our galaxy would look like if you could see it from afar.
Andromeda is faint and best seen with a telescope, but you can observe it with binoculars or even a cell phone with a good camera, even from light-contaminated areas. And under very dark skies, it is hardly an object with the naked eye. So while it can be a bit challenging, an entire galaxy is worth seeing with your own eyes!
To find the Andromeda Galaxy, look northeast in the night sky once it’s really dark. Find the side “W” that represents Queen Cassiopeia’s throne. To the right of Cassiopeia is the constellation Andromeda, which includes this chain of bright stars. Moving up, turn left at the second of these bright stars, and as you look towards Cassiopeia, you will notice a patch of dim, diffuse light. That fuzzy patch is the Andromeda galaxy, located 2 million light-years away. If you do, congratulations! You have become intergalactic.
Here are the phases of the Moon for October. You can catch up on all NASA missions to explore the solar system and beyond at nasa.gov. I’m Preston Dyches from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and that’s what happens this month.
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