Today:
Very high in the west-northwest, emerging from the fading twilight near 7:45 PM, sparkles the brilliant star Capella, the fourth brightest star that we can see. What we can’t see is that it is actually a pair of bright, giant stars, each more than twice as massive as the Sun. They orbit each other once every 104 days, no farther apart than the Sun and Venus.
Thursday:
The Vernal or Spring Equinox marks the calendar arrival of Spring early this morning at 5:01 AM EDT, when the Sun is positioned directly above the Earth’s equator. Although the word equinox means “equal night”, the atmosphere bends the sun’s light, shifting it slightly higher, adding several minutes to the daylight.
Friday:
By 2:30 AM, early Saturday morning, a waning Gibbous Moon climbs into the southeast, and will spend the rest of the night chasing the red star Antares, the “heart” of the Scorpion. The pair slides low through the southern skies, cresting due south at 5:40 AM, only a quarter of the way above the horizon, and then fading as twilight brightens by 6 o’clock.