Know Your Neighbours:
Venus & Mars Are All Right Tonight
June-July 2000
This is an article from WaveLength Magazine, available in print in North America and globally on the web.
by Bryan Nichols
You can argue about whether men are from Mars or women are from Venus until you're valentine pink in the face, but for this article we'll shift our attention from modern gender psychobabble to grandiose wars among Goddesses and Gods.
Which brings us (really it does) to the sequel to last issue's column on stars. At night, most of the things glittering up above our boats are stars. Most, but certainly not all. This round we'll focus on planets, moons, clusters and even galaxies you can easily spot with naked eyes. Regardless of the cosmic alignment of your chromosomes.
PLANETS (Greek for wanderers):
The five planets we can see look superficially like stars-bright points of light. You can make a case that they don't "twinkle" like stars do but twinkling is pretty subjective (among other things). What tipped off our observant ancestors is that planets don't stay put. They travel within a belt of sky (the zodiac), wandering haphazardly through the fixed constellations of the night.
This refusal to toe the line became the source of countless legends and myths, epic tales of divine Love & War, harbingers of disasters and miracles. Our Western week is a who's who of the Roman sun, moon and visible planets. Many otherwise intelligent modern folk still seem to believe in some of these wacky myths (how often do you check your horoscope?).
Regardless of your regard for astrological flimflammery, planets are fascinating to watch. Up to date star guides, magazines or computer programs can tell you where they are on any given night. Check out www.nonags.com (browse under education) for some free star and planetary software that will show you what's up there, and when.
NORTHERN LIGHTS:
What about lights in the sky that aren't really in space at all? The famed aurora borealis are (roughly) energy from the sun hitting our own atmosphere. A good show of northern lights is a breathtaking privilege, and helps make your pasty polar tan worthwhile.
CLUSTERS:
Clusters are dense and distant groups of stars that look like fuzzy blobs from our earthly perspective. Binoculars will resolve some of these puffs of celestial cotton into individual stars-for others it takes powerful telescopes.
NEBULAE:
Nebula is Latin for "mist" and that's kind of what these look like. Only a few are visible without telescopes but they are intriguing things to find. Made up of gas or dust, they can cover large areas of the sky and are the places where stars are born-or the remains of those that burnt out and did not fade away.
GALAXIES:
Stars aren't scattered out there evenly as they seem to us. They tend to be in clusters, and the clusters tend to be in great masses. These huge, swirling masses of stars we call galaxies-our own Milky Way is the most familiar. But you can also check out another one or two, WAY out there in space-the farthest things your eye can see. So here are a dozen blobs or blips or patches or swirls to look for on those calm dark nights. Nothing puts our problems in perspective like pondering these different worlds, different galaxies even, while you bob gently on our little blue planet.
Naturalist and starry eyed kayaker Bryan Nichols hopes Venus and Mars are all right tonight-he's got a hot date ©Checklist # 13-Heavenly Bodies
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NORTHERN LIGHTS Aurora borealis (lit. light north). Every description you find of what exactly Northern Lights are seems more complex than the last. Suffice to say they are influenced by sunspots and the earth’s magnetic fields (there are also “southern lights” down under). Describing them is equally difficult—from a dull green glow on the horizon to boiling, twisting bands of colors straight above, the auroras are well worth paddling amid icebergs to see.
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“THE” MOON Luna (the moon, light). Moon, month, menses—the root word is all the same so forget the “man” in the moon; our curvy luminous neighbor is definitely female and is associated with a plethora of Goddesses from all over the world. Other planets have moons of course, but ours is so close—its gravity pulls the oceans we paddle on and calls to the blood in our veins. It triggers reproductive urges (and other forms of lunacy) in all sorts of critters, from corals to crabs and computer nerds. It brightens our nights and even occasionally dares to block the sun. To get a handle on what the moon is doing, just remember she rises fifty minutes later each night. As paddlers in the tidal Northwest it is easy (often essential) to slip away from artificial lights and get back into step with lunar phases. MERCURY liquid metal, messenger of the Gods. Mercury is tough to spot as he never wanders far from the sun. Look for this little, innermost planet in the twilight of dawn and dusk—astronomy programs and magazines will tell you when and where. Like the other inner planet Venus, close looks at Mercury will reveal phases similar to our moon. |
VENUS Goddess of love & desire. Venus is far bolder than Mercury. Though she also never ventures far from the sun, Venus is bright—the third brightest object in our sky, second only to the sun and moon. On the right nights, you can see your shadow cast by Venusian light. Often called the evening or morning star, the ancient Mayans (among other civilizations) were adept at predicting her complex movements and based many aspects of their religious life on them. |
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MARS God of war. The red planet is the home of martians (however elusive), crashed NASA probes and those mysterious canals. From earth, Mars is a distinctly reddish “star” that roams swiftly through the constellations of the zodiac. It gets considerably bigger in the sky when its orbit brings it closer to us; watching it wander has been popular for thousands of years.
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JUPITER the top God (equals Greek Zeus), sky & thunder. Aptly named, Jupiter is the king of our solar system—11 times bigger than Earth, a giant planet of swirling gas storms. When it’s closest to us it can be about three times brighter than the brightest stars. With a steady hand and good binoculars, you should be able to spot some of the four big moons that orbit Jupiter—they’ll be lined up on either or both sides.
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SATURN God of agriculture. The ringed planet is also huge but much farther away than Jupiter so it never gets as bright. You could easily mistake it for a bright star, though binoculars or a small telescope might give you a glimpse of the famous rings, orbiting bands of rocky debris.
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PLEIADES CLUSTER Daughters of Pleidone. Zeus put the seven daughters of Pleidone and Atlas into the sky—though apparently one of the stars has faded since; only six sisters are now visible. This open cluster in Taurus looks like a tiny dipper but with binoculars a dazzling array of small, hot new stars becomes visible. The diagram shows how many you might spot on a good night.
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ANDROMEDA GALAXY (Nov) Ethiopian princess. If (like me) you’re into the unlikely combination of bondage and sea monsters, Andromeda’s tale will appeal to you. The large constellation named after her contains a “nearby” galaxy that can be seen bare eyed, sitting just above her knee. With binoculars, it’s a swirl right out of sci-fi—and 2.2 million light years away. It’s the farthest (and therefore oldest) thing we can see unaided, a glimpse into the distant past and well worth searching for on dark winter nights.
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BEEHIVE CLUSTER (March) Praesepe, the manger. This is probably the most obvious “ball of cotton” in Northern skies, a fuzzy patch in the otherwise dim and boring constellation of Cancer (between Leo & Gemini). Point your binoculars at it to check out what astronomers call an open cluster—the fuzz is actually a dense ball of stars.
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For more info I recommend the book Peterson Field Guide to the Stars and Planets.
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