Spring Festival Sky Watching! It's not just comets, it's Venus, Jupiter, Mars and Saturn

2023-01-17 17:07·Hubei Daily

This year, the brightest known comet will meet Earth

Some astronomers recently said that a newly discovered comet will fly by Earth in the near future. The comet is the first to appear in 50,000 years and may be directly observable with the naked eye. This "celestial drama" of the New Year has attracted the attention of many people. Is it once in 50,000 years? Is there a threat to the planet? The reporter also interviewed experts from the Beijing Planetarium.

The reporter learned from the Beijing Planetarium that the comet, numbered 2022E3 with a diameter of about 1 km, is gradually moving towards the direction of the North Star and will reach perigee on February 1, and the comet's brightness can reach 5~6 magnitude.

From the perspective of orbit, comets are divided into periodic comets and non-periodic comets, and the orbit of non-periodic comets is not a closed curve and will pass only once from the sun. This comet is a non-periodic comet in a hyperbolic orbit.

For hyperbolic orbiting comets that rush out of the solar system and will never return

Kou Wen, senior engineer of Beijing Planetarium: Judging from its current orbit, it should not be once in 50,000 years. It should only pass near the sun this time and never come back.

Affected by solar radiation and the solar wind, comets drag out long tails that become more spectacular the closer they get to the Sun. Experts have found in recent observations that comet 2022E3 has formed two tails and will continue to increase in brightness as it gets closer.

It is known that this year's brightest comet will dress up the Spring Festival

Kou Wen, senior engineer of Beijing Planetarium: This comet is the brightest comet known to this year. And from the current situation, its brightness is slowly rising.

For the northern part of the continent, comets will not set all night. Experts recommend observing in the second half of the night, and under ideal conditions, we can barely observe this blue-green, hazy object near the North Star with the naked eye, and observe it better with small binoculars.

Mercury is absent from the moon, and the "five-star pearl" will appear in the sky

In addition to this increasingly bright comet, during the Spring Festival, we can also observe four of the five planets in the sky: Venus, Jupiter, Mars and Saturn. At that time, they will be strung in a line with the moon, which looks like "five-star pearls", but it is slightly different from the "five-star pearls" we traditionally talk about metal, wood, water, fire and earth.

During the Spring Festival, Venus and Saturn will appear in the low altitude of the southwest, Jupiter will appear in the high sky of the southwest, and red Mars will appear in the southeast direction. Four of the five planets will join the Moon in a line in the sky, and unfortunately Mercury is not in their ranks.

Kou Wen, senior engineer of Beijing Planetarium: In fact, the real five-star pearl in our traditional Chinese tradition refers to the five large planets of metal, wood, water, fire and earth, and they are to gather in a small enough range in the sky. Like this time, strictly speaking, it cannot be called five-star pearls, because from Mars to Venus, their span is about 100 degrees, which is a little too far, and five-star pearls must be within at least thirty or forty degrees.

Experts estimate that the true meaning of gold, wood, water, fire and earth five stars will not appear until 17 years later.

Kou Wen, senior engineer of Beijing Planetarium: It is necessary to wait until after dark in September 2040, when these five planets gather in the low altitude in the west, only within a range of about 10 degrees, that time is the real five-star convolution, or five-star convergence. It cannot be said that it is a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity, at least once in a century.

Although you can't see the real five-star pearl, there are still abundant wonderful celestial phenomena during the Spring Festival. On the first night we will see a conjunction of Venus and Saturn; On the evening of the second day of the first year, a thin curved moon will join them, forming Venus Saturn with the moon; On the fifth day of the Lunar New Year (26th), the Moon will walk to the bright Jupiter, forming a Jupiter-Moon conjunction.

(Main station reporter Lu Nian, Wei Bangjun)

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