July brings sultry nights but also brims with celestial delights. Highlights for the month are the Thunder Moon, the rising summer Milky Way, the return of Saturn and Venus dropping out of sight.
July opens with the aptly named full Thunder Moon, which occurs on July 3 at 7:39 a.m. Eastern time. As with the full moon each month, there are a number of other names based on the traditions and folklore of different cultures. The full moon in July is also widely known as the Buck Moon, since the growth of antlers begins to appear on male deer. It is also known as the Hay Moon, Salmon Moon or Raspberry Moon.
All of the individual stars that we see in the night sky are members of this vast spiral-shaped disc that is just one of hundreds of billions of other galaxies in the cosmos. While astrophysicists continue to debate the actual structure of the Milky Way, for most of us who like to look at the night sky, it is a treasure trove of bright glowing nebulae, star clusters and mysterious voids where no stars are seen at all.
Sadly, it has been said that because of increasing urban light pollution, some 90 percent of people on Earth have never even seen the Milky Way. If your summer vacation plans include a trip to the shore or the mountains, take the time to look at the Milky Way on a moonless evening. It may change the way you look at the night sky.The bright planet Venus has been a fixture in the western sky during the evening twilight for several months. However, prepare to bid the planet farewell.
Mars, on the other hand, will linger in the west for the rest of July, drifting eastward among the stars of Leo the Lion. On the evenings of July 9 and 10, you can watch Mars pass just over a half degree north of the blue-tinted star. The best time to look will be at around 9:30 p.m., when the pair will be 15 degrees high in the western sky. Binoculars will give you a good view of the event.
By late July you may notice a solitary yellow object rising over the southeast horizon in the late evening. This is Saturn, the most distant of the classical planets known to the ancients. When Galileo first spotted it in his crude telescope, he thought its peculiar appearance was made by three objects. The true nature of these “extra” objects was not revealed until 1655, when Dutch astronomer Christiaan Huygens finally perceived the famous rings of Saturn.
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