Comets have always been special. In ancient times, the sky was a stately ordered place, with the Sun, Moon, Stars and Planets all moving in their stately and predictable paths. But every now and then, something strange and new would appear. It would start as a fuzzy star with a misty trail behind it, growing from week to week until it formed a spectacular arc across the sky before fading away and vanishing. This was not a part of the … Continue reading →
As one of the classical planets, Venus has been a familiar sight to humanity ever since we first started looking at the stars. Like Mercury, Venus’s movements are bound to the Sun but the similarities end there. Venus moves more slowly, and wanders further. It also shines extremely brightly – only the Sun and the Moon are brighter than Venus. Venus is easily identified as the Evening or Morning star and often passes near to the Moon, putting on a … Continue reading →
Uranus is the seventh planet out from the Sun, and the first to discovered in recorded history. Although it is technically visible to the naked eye, it shines faintly enough that it appears to be just another tiny dot in an ocean of stars. It is so inconspicuous that even though it appears in some of Galileo’s sketches of Jupiter as a tiny star in the background, he never noticed it moving between viewing sessions. It wasn’t until 1781 that … Continue reading →
Neptune is the only planet that cannot be seen with the naked eye (assuming you aren’t still resisting the formal IAU definition of a planet…). It is extremely far away and very dim, so much so that it wasn’t even discovered visually – its existence had to be inferred mathematically. Herschell may have turned the scientific world on its head by discovering a sixth planet in the sky (We don’t count earth since it is under our feet and is technically the … Continue reading →
Mighty Jupiter, largest of all the planets, dominates the night sky. Although Venus is brighter, Jupiter is the most prominent of the five classical planets. Jupiter orbits further out than Earth, so is free to wander as far from the Sun along the ecliptic as he pleases. Unlike Venus, Jupiter can shine down from directly overhead and be visible all night when at the right point in his orbit. Dominating the night sky with his icy white brilliance, it’s no … Continue reading →
