Skywatch for the week of May 19, 2025
By Jon U. Bell
May 19, 2025 at 12:00 AM EDT
Skywatch Monday 5-19-2025.mp3
Mon May 19, 2025 ARCTURUS THE INTRUDER
In the eastern sky this evening there is a star that doesn’t belong here – an intruder. It’s Arcturus, the fourth brightest star in our night sky. Most of the stars you see are moving along with our sun, traveling in nearly circular orbits about the hub of our Milky Way galaxy, but Arcturus, an old red giant star, moves at a sharp angle to all the others, plunging along an elliptical path through the disc from up above. Tonight, it’s a mere 37 light years away, that’s a bit more than 200 trillion miles, but in a half million years or so it will have shot down below us, and its ever-increasing distance will make it too dim to see without a telescope. So, enjoy viewing Arcturus while it’s still in the neighborhood!
Skywatch Tuesday 5-20-2025.mp3
Tue May 20, 2025 BERENICE'S HAIR
In the northern sky this evening the faint constellation of Coma Berenices appears to the south of the Big Dipper’s handle. Berenice was the wife of one of the Ptolemies who ruled Egypt. Just before a great battle, Berenice promised to cut off her hair and place it in the temple as a sacrifice if Ptolemy survived. He did, and she did. Then somebody stole the hair – yes, a classic case of hair today and gone tomorrow! This got Ptolemy’s dander up! He ordered his soldiers to comb the palace until they found the hair; some tried to give him the brush-off, but the head priest made up a bald-faced lie: he pointed to this part of the sky and declared that Berenice’s hair had risen up to the heavens to commemorate the occasion. As a result, Berenice's Hair is now a permanent constellation, all because of some great hair-raising battle of long ago.
Skywatch Wednesday 5-21-2025.mp3
Wed May 21, 2025 NOVAE AND SUPERNOVAE
For the past 13 months I’ve been going outside every clear evening to look for a nova that is scheduled to appear sometime between now and next year. So far, nothing. A nova is a very hot, dying white dwarf star that is pulling gas off of a nearby companion star. That gas spirals around the white dwarf, and when there’s a lot of it, the gas touches down on the surface of the white dwarf and ignites, creating a flare-up in the star. The white dwarf brightens considerably for a few days, then dims down again – until more gas has piled up around it and the cycle repeats itself. This can go on for years and years. The last time this star, called t Coronae Borealis, did this, was back in 1946. When it does flare up again, it will appear as a fairly bright star well to the south of the Big Dipper’s handle. Stay tuned!
Skywatch Thursday 5-22-2025.mp3
Thu May 22, 2025 ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
Arthur Conan Doyle, born on May 22nd, 1859, invented the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, one of my favorites. But Holmes confessed to Doctor Watson that he didn’t know that the earth orbited the sun: “What… is it to me? You say we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or my work.” But I think that astronomy would appeal to his powers of observation. And through inductive reasoning, Holmes could infer that if we live on a planet, one of many, that goes round the sun, then it would be logical to assume that there were other planets out there, going ‘round other suns. And he did say, “When you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” Sounds a lot like black holes to me!
Skywatch Friday 5-23-2025.mp3
Fri May 23, 2025 MOON AND VENUS, SATURN
The planet Venus, which appeared as a brilliant evening star all through the fall and the winter, has now passed in between our planet and the sun, and moved over into the predawn sky. It is now an extraordinarily bright morning star appearing above the eastern horizon before the day begins. Tomorrow morning at dawn you’ll find that the moon has joined the planet of love and will appear as a slim crescent below and to the left of it. Now just above and to the right of Venus there is another planet, appearing as a slightly yellow-tinged star. That planet is Saturn. While these three celestial objects might appear to be very close to each other, their actual distances from us are astronomical: the moon is a scant quarter of a million miles out, Venus is roughly 28 million miles distant and Saturn is almost a billion miles away!
Mon May 19, 2025 ARCTURUS THE INTRUDER
In the eastern sky this evening there is a star that doesn’t belong here – an intruder. It’s Arcturus, the fourth brightest star in our night sky. Most of the stars you see are moving along with our sun, traveling in nearly circular orbits about the hub of our Milky Way galaxy, but Arcturus, an old red giant star, moves at a sharp angle to all the others, plunging along an elliptical path through the disc from up above. Tonight, it’s a mere 37 light years away, that’s a bit more than 200 trillion miles, but in a half million years or so it will have shot down below us, and its ever-increasing distance will make it too dim to see without a telescope. So, enjoy viewing Arcturus while it’s still in the neighborhood!
Skywatch Tuesday 5-20-2025.mp3
Tue May 20, 2025 BERENICE'S HAIR
In the northern sky this evening the faint constellation of Coma Berenices appears to the south of the Big Dipper’s handle. Berenice was the wife of one of the Ptolemies who ruled Egypt. Just before a great battle, Berenice promised to cut off her hair and place it in the temple as a sacrifice if Ptolemy survived. He did, and she did. Then somebody stole the hair – yes, a classic case of hair today and gone tomorrow! This got Ptolemy’s dander up! He ordered his soldiers to comb the palace until they found the hair; some tried to give him the brush-off, but the head priest made up a bald-faced lie: he pointed to this part of the sky and declared that Berenice’s hair had risen up to the heavens to commemorate the occasion. As a result, Berenice's Hair is now a permanent constellation, all because of some great hair-raising battle of long ago.
Skywatch Wednesday 5-21-2025.mp3
Wed May 21, 2025 NOVAE AND SUPERNOVAE
For the past 13 months I’ve been going outside every clear evening to look for a nova that is scheduled to appear sometime between now and next year. So far, nothing. A nova is a very hot, dying white dwarf star that is pulling gas off of a nearby companion star. That gas spirals around the white dwarf, and when there’s a lot of it, the gas touches down on the surface of the white dwarf and ignites, creating a flare-up in the star. The white dwarf brightens considerably for a few days, then dims down again – until more gas has piled up around it and the cycle repeats itself. This can go on for years and years. The last time this star, called t Coronae Borealis, did this, was back in 1946. When it does flare up again, it will appear as a fairly bright star well to the south of the Big Dipper’s handle. Stay tuned!
Skywatch Thursday 5-22-2025.mp3
Thu May 22, 2025 ARTHUR CONAN DOYLE
Arthur Conan Doyle, born on May 22nd, 1859, invented the fictional detective Sherlock Holmes, one of my favorites. But Holmes confessed to Doctor Watson that he didn’t know that the earth orbited the sun: “What… is it to me? You say we go round the sun. If we went round the moon it would not make a pennyworth of difference to me or my work.” But I think that astronomy would appeal to his powers of observation. And through inductive reasoning, Holmes could infer that if we live on a planet, one of many, that goes round the sun, then it would be logical to assume that there were other planets out there, going ‘round other suns. And he did say, “When you have excluded the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth.” Sounds a lot like black holes to me!
Skywatch Friday 5-23-2025.mp3
Fri May 23, 2025 MOON AND VENUS, SATURN
The planet Venus, which appeared as a brilliant evening star all through the fall and the winter, has now passed in between our planet and the sun, and moved over into the predawn sky. It is now an extraordinarily bright morning star appearing above the eastern horizon before the day begins. Tomorrow morning at dawn you’ll find that the moon has joined the planet of love and will appear as a slim crescent below and to the left of it. Now just above and to the right of Venus there is another planet, appearing as a slightly yellow-tinged star. That planet is Saturn. While these three celestial objects might appear to be very close to each other, their actual distances from us are astronomical: the moon is a scant quarter of a million miles out, Venus is roughly 28 million miles distant and Saturn is almost a billion miles away!