Though the sun feels most intense in July, when summer heat typically peaks, Earth actually reaches its farthest point from the sun in its elliptical orbit (a moment known as aphelion) at 6:10 p.m. July 4.
Saturn is the visible planet that will spend the most time in the night sky in July, and it will be at its brightest around July 9. If you missed it in June, the moon will again pass by both Saturn and Jupiter in the southern sky July 13-15. Jupiter is the brighter of the two planets, while Saturn has a golden hue. Saturn’s rings are visible even with a child’s telescope. But research recently published in the journal Icarus found that the particles that make up the rings are gradually raining onto the planet’s surface, and will disappear within a few hundred million years.
Delta Aquariid meteors could appear on the nights around July 29.
August
The Perseids, usually making for one of the most active meteor showers of the year, are expected to be most abundant the night of Aug. 12 and morning of Aug. 13. Each meteor is a chunk of debris from the trail of the Comet Swift-Tuttle burning up in Earth’s atmosphere. In a perfectly dark sky, as many as 100 meteors can be visible each hour at the shower’s peak. Unfortunately, a waxing gibbous moon will outshine many of them this year.
There is a supermoon in August, but it won’t be visible — it’s a new moon. The moon will be within 222,000 miles of Earth when a new lunar cycle starts at 6:37 a.m. Aug. 30, bringing about higher than usual tides.
September
Neptune is not visible with the naked eye, but around Sept. 10 becomes brightest for the year and most easily spotted with a telescope. Consult a star chart to find it in the constellation Aquarius.
September’s full moon is a “micromoon,” another non-technical astronomical term that can be used to make a normal full moon seem a little more special. The moon will be more than 252,000 miles away from Earth when it becomes full at 12:32 a.m. Sept. 14. That means the Harvest Moon will appear about 14 percent smaller than February’s supermoon.
The autumnal equinox arrives Sept. 23 at 3:50 a.m., the moment the Northern and Southern hemispheres again receive equal sunlight. It marks the beginning of fall on our side of the world, and of spring on the other side. The sun begins spending more time below the horizon than above it in Baltimore on Sept. 26.
October
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| These meteors are named “Orionid” because they appear to emanate out of the constellation Orion, which takes the shape of a hunter wearing a most-fetching three-star belt. (Specifically, they appear to radiate from his “club.”) It’s one of the most recognizable constellations in the night sky. |
The Orionid meteors, which also come from debris in the trail of Halley’s Comet, peak the night of Oct. 21-22. You don’t need to find
Orion, the constellation from which the meteors appear to radiate, to spot them, but the hunter and his belt are among the easier constellations to find.
Uranus isn’t easily visible with the naked eye, but around Oct. 28 becomes relatively easier to spot with binoculars or a telescope. A star chart can help you find it near the constellation Aries.
November
A transit of Mercury will be visible across the sun for about 5 ½ hours Nov. 11. A transit occurs when Mercury or Venus passes directly between the Earth and the sun, appearing as a tiny dark spot on the face of the sun. A transit of Mercury was last visible from Baltimore on May 9, 2016, but won’t be again until May 7, 2049.
The
Leonid meteor shower peaks after midnight Nov. 18, as Earth passes through the orbit of the Comet Tempel-Tuttle. The constellation Leo will be relatively low in the east-northeast sky at that time, and closer to the middle of the sky before dawn. As many as a dozen meteors could appear each hour.
Jupiter and Venus will again come together for a close conjunction Nov. 24, but will appear not far from the sun. Look in the southwest in the evening twilight. Saturn will appear just above them.
November is the best month to spot the tight Pleiades star cluster, also known as the Seven Sisters. They appear in the east within about an hour of sunset, and straight overhead around midnight. Find them toward the northwest of Orion’s belt, beyond the bright star Aldebaran.
December
The earliest sunsets of the year arrive at 4:43 p.m. for the first two weeks of December, centered around Dec. 7.
The Geminid meteors, the best shower of the year, peak around the night of Dec. 13-14. Unfortunately, as with the Perseids, the moon could spoil the show. With a full moon early on Dec. 12, some of the fainter meteors may be hidden by the moon’s glare. But it’s still worth a look for meteors from the trail of Comet 3200 Phaethon — dozens can appear each hour, sometimes streaking across the sky in bright colors.
The winter solstice comes Dec. 21 at 11:19 p.m. There will be 9 hours, 24 minutes of daylight, about 5 ½ fewer hours than on the “longest” day of the year in June.
The night of Dec. 22, the Ursid meteors, a relatively minor shower, could provide a better show than usual.
An annular solar eclipse — when the moon darkens all but the outer edges of the sun — occurs Dec. 26, but will be visible only across southern Asia
Other craft seemed to hover in the air without techniques of generating ‘lift’ such as rotor blades, Elizondo said. Footage of an encounter between an F/A-18 Super Hornet fighter jet and an oval-shaped object with no exhaust, wings or tail traveling at incredible speeds was later released to illustrate the sort of sightings investigated by the AATIP. Much of the investigation was contracted out to Bigelow Aerospace, whose founder once told CBS 60 Minutes he was ‘absolutely convinced’ that aliens are real and that our planet has been visited by UFOs.
