As Australia gears up for the Christmas break our warm summer evenings make the night sky come alive and you don't need to be a professional astronomer or even have a telescope to catch all of these celestial treats.
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This summer in particular will feature a wide variety of astronomical events that can be seen from your own backyard.
The most consistent meteor shower of the year, the Geminids, starts this weekend. The shower is centred in the north-east around 11pm and is visible until dawn. We can usually expect around 20 meteors per hour.
If you can’t travel to a dark spot find a shed or part of the house that gives you some shading from the glare, writes Dave Reneke from Australasian Science Magazine. The best time to view the Geminids will be 2-3am. Grab a hot cuppa and just sit and wait. It’ll happen.
This summer will also be an excellent opportunity for stargazers to go planet spotting. Mercury can be found low in the south-west at sunset. Venus is eye-catching in the western sky after sunset. By the end of the month, the red planet Mars will have drifted towards Venus and will sit just above and to the right.
Mars is high in the west at sunset and Jupiter can be seen in the eastern sky before sunrise, paired up with the bright star Spica. Unfortunately Saturn is too close to the Sun to be seen this month. It returns to the morning sky next in January.
It might surprise you to know that up until the late 1700s we only knew of these six planets in the solar system. Uranus Neptune and Pluto hadn’t even been thought of.
The term “planet” comes from the Greek word for wanderer. Many ancient people thought that the planets were gods, so they gave them the names of their gods. All of the planets, except Earth have names of Roman deities. For instance, Mercury is the winged messenger of the gods, Mars is the god of war and because of its virginal white light, Venus was called the Goddess of Love.
So, I hear you say, what’s Earth’s real name? Simple, it’s Terra. Yes, as in Terra Firma, and did you know the Moon has a proper name too – it’s called Luna. Now go and skygaze!
