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What Is a New Moon? When Is the Next New Moon?

Bob Berman — Tue, 12 Nov 2024 05:00:00 +0000

What Is a New Moon? When Is the Next New Moon? Bob Berman Tue, 11/12/2024 - 00:00

Learn All About the New Moon

Bob Berman

November 12, 2024

It’s a new Moon! For astronomers, a new Moon means no Moon to see. For many cultures, however, the new Moon carries special meaning. What does a new Moon look like, and what does it mean? Let’s explore, fellow Moon lovers …

What Is a New Moon?

A new Moon is essentially the opposite of a full Moon. During a full Moon, we see the side of the Moon that is illuminated by the Sun, giving the Moon its bright, glowing appearance. During a new Moon, however, we see the side of the Moon that is not being illuminated by the Sun, which makes the Moon blend in with the night sky.

When the Moon is “new,” it’s located between the Earth and the Sun. In other words, the Moon is in line with the Sun, and the Sun and Earth are on opposite sides of the Moon. (Note that when the Moon is perfectly aligned in front of the Sun, it blocks out the Sun, giving us a solar eclipse.)

The new Moon marks the beginning of a lunar cycle. This means that there’s a new Moon about once a month because the Moon takes about a month (29.5 days) to orbit Earth.

In fact, the word “moon” shares its origins with the Latin word metri, which means “to measure,” and mensis, which means “month.” The Moon is called the Moon because it is used to measure the months.

When Is the Next New Moon?

Check out our Moon Phase Calendar or consult the table below to find out when the next new Moon will occur. Time refers to the moment when the Moon is illuminated by 0%. (Note: Dates and times are according to Eastern time.)

New Moons in 2024
Month	New Moon Date & Time
January	Thursday, January 11, at 10:30 P.M.
February	Friday, February 9, at 5:59 P.M.
March	Sunday, March 10, at 5:00 A.M.
April	Monday, April 8, at 2:21 P.M.
May	Tuesday, May 7, at 11:22 P.M.
June	Thursday, June 6, at 8:38 A.M.
July	Friday, July 5, at 6:57 P.M.
August	Sunday, August 4, at 7:13 A.M.
September	Monday, September 2, at 9:56 P.M.
October	Wednesday, October 2, at 2:49 P.M.
November	Friday, November 1, at 8:47 A.M.
December	Sunday, December 1, at 1:21 A.M.
December: A Black Moon!	Monday, December 30, at 5:27 P.M.

When Does the New Moon Rise?

The new Moon always rises near sunrise! See our handy chart on “When Will the Moon Rise Tonight?”

As the new Moon crosses the sky during the day, rising and setting around the same time as the Sun, it’s lost in the solar glare. See when the Moon will rise and set in your area!

The new Moon is also lit up from behind, showing us its dark side. It’s doubly invisible. New Moons generally can’t be seen with the naked eye.

A day or two after each month’s new Moon, a very slim crescent moon always becomes visible in the west after sunset. It may appear brighter than usual.

Seven days after the new Moon, the waxing Moon reaches its First Quarter stage when it’s 50% illuminated. Learn why we call it the Quarter Moon rather than the Half Moon.

New Moon Folklore

Here at The Old Farmer’s ��, the new Moon is strongly associated with Gardening by the Moon. According to this age-old practice, one should plant vegetables that bear crops above ground during the light, or waxing, of the Moon: from the day the Moon is new to the day it is full.

We also look to the Moon’s phases to determine many holidays based on the lunar calendar. For example, the date of Easter is determined by the Moon’s phase, and the second new Moon after the December solstice marks the Lunar New Year.

Of course, many skywatchers look forward to the Moon’s return to the evening sky and the first sighting of the waxing crescent one or two days later. This very thin crescent is always low in the evening twilight.

After the Moon’s absence for a few days, it’s kind of a lunar rebirth. Thus, many cultures revolved around ceremonies around the first appearance of the new Moon.

For Muslims, its sighting officially marks the beginning of each month.

Dark Side of the Moon

We’re often asked about the “dark” side of the Moon. There is no continually dark “side” of the Moon. Every part of the Moon has both day and night in half–month intervals. See more about the dark or far side of the Moon.

Black Moons

When more than one full Moon occurs within a calendar month, we call this a Blue Moon. When the same happens with a new Moon, we instead call it a Black Moon! However, as with Blue Moons, there are a few different definitions. Read more about Black Moons here.

A Smile or an Archer’s Bow?

Sometimes, we’re asked about when the Moon “smiles.” Only in late winter (January and February) does the waxing crescent Moon look like a smile. The rest of the year, it’s more or less lit up on its right side, especially in the autumn. (The crescent Moon is never oriented like a frown).

Aren’t Crescent Moons beautiful? Who can resist?

Read more about crescent Moons in my article, “The Captivating Crescent Moon.”

Moon phase

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Venus: 10 Fun Facts About the Hottest Planet!

Bob Berman — Fri, 08 Nov 2024 14:00:00 +0000

Venus: 10 Fun Facts About the Hottest Planet! Bob Berman Fri, 11/08/2024 - 09:00

On June 30, 2015, Venus and Jupiter were close in western skies at dusk.

Photo Credit

NASA

Our Sister Planet—and UFO?

Bob Berman

November 8, 2024

Sister planet. Nearest neighbor. Goddess of love. How appealing the planet Venus sounds! But the strange cloudy world is actually a land of paradox and horror. Discover 10 weird facts about planet Venus, the hottest planet in our solar system!

10 Cool Facts About Hot Venus

Take the time to learn some ten cool Venus facts about our very, very hot neighboring planet!

Venus is Earth’s closest neighbor in the solar system! She’s the second planet from the Sun and is sometimes called our “sister planet” since its diameter and density are nearly the same as ours.
Venus is the brightest object in the sky after the Sun and the Moon. Because the planet looks like a bright star in the morning or evening sky, it’s often called the “morning star” or “evening star.”
Venus’s day is longer than its year. Venus spins on its axis in 243 Earth days but orbits the Sun in 224 Earth days.
Venus’ creamy-white brilliance comes from sunlight bouncing off shiny clouds of sulfuric acid. Because of this, Venus is deceivingly reflective as a mirror; fully 76 percent of the sunlight gets bounced away from the shiniest planet in our solar system. Beneath the clouds of concentrated acid droplets, Venus is eternally overcast.
Venus’s brilliance is dazzling enough to cast shadows when seen from a dark place. Wait until the new Moon phase, when there will be no Moon to compete.
We have learned that Venus’s surface is covered with craters, volcanoes, mountains, and big lava plains.
Venus’s surface temperature never budges from about 850°F, day and night! Venus manages to have a hotter surface than even Mercury, which is the nearest planet to the Sun.
The air is 96% carbon dioxide, trapping the sun’s heat like a blanket. This was the original ‘greenhouse effect’ model long before that phrase’s current popularity.
Venus’s atmosphere provides no oxygen whatsoever.
The air is suffocatingly dense and would crush you. The planet’s air pressure remains stuck at 90 Earth pressure, making it the most efficient pressure cooker in this neck of the galaxy. This compressed air distorts everything into fun-house mirror images.

Venus, an Ancient Calendar

What’s fun about Venus is that it reliably passes Earth approximately every 19 months, making it an old friend for those who like to keep an eye on it.

It makes sense that many ancient cultures, such as the Mayans, revolved their lives and created their calendars around that one planet.

The Mayans were well aware that Venus starts emerging in the western sky every 19-½ months. But since that interval does not match Earth’s 12-month solar calendar, its first emergence happens during various months, which alters its appearance depending on whether its orbit at that time of year slants low and leftward from the sunset point or, instead, angles more vertically up from the western horizon.

The Mayans knew all this! They also knew that wonderful Venus displays repeat at eight-year intervals. (For example, a favorable Venus display in February of 2024 will match the glorious maximum seen in 2017.)

What the Mayans did not know was that this happens because Venus performs 13 circuits of the Sun in the same time, plus or minus a few days, as Earth circles the Sun in eight years. So a Sun, Earth, and Venus configuration repeats every 8 years.

Planet or UFO?

Did you know that Venus alone accounts for more than half of all UFO reports? And they don’t all come from dimwits. My two favorite Venus stories:

Jimmy Carter, while Governor of Georgia, phoned the state police to report a UFO that proved to be Venus!
And a squadron of allied bombers returning from a mission over Japan in World War 2 saw a brilliant light that appeared to keep pace with them. Firing their guns, they attempted, without success, to blow up the Evening Star. At our Overlook Observatory phone and during public radio call-in shows, when someone begins a sentence with “I’ve been seeing a star….” I obnoxiously interrupt them with: “Venus!”

Of course, no human being is likely to go to Venus. Ever. It’s touching that we named the most luminous “star” after the love goddess. She’ll melt you. Crush you. And she’s stinky. For all eternity, our nearest planet—that dazzling beacon in the western sky—will tantalize with a warning label: Look but don’t touch.

Venus

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How Much Daylight Do We Gain After the Winter Solstice?

Bob Berman — Fri, 25 Oct 2024 20:43:39 +0000

How Much Daylight Do We Gain After the Winter Solstice? Bob Berman Fri, 10/25/2024 - 16:43

After the Shortest Day of the Year, Get Ready for Sunlight!

Bob Berman

October 25, 2024

The winter solstice occurs on Saturday, December 21, at 4:19 a.m. Yes, this is the “shortest” day of the year, but let’s talk about how many minutes each day the daylight increases afterward. Plus, we’ll discuss other ways you can see and feel the solstice.

What Happens on the Winter Solstice?

Here are the most tangible factors affecting your everyday life.

Your shadow will then extend to its longest length, which, granted, won’t make or break your day.
The real news is that we will then have the fewest minutes of daylight in 2024. On the solstice in December, those of us in the Northern Hemisphere have our shortest day and our longest night.
Starting Monday, December 23, the days will start being longer, and the Sun will be slightly higher up
We’ll start feeling greater warmth on our skin, too! Solar intensity depends on the sun’s height. But since the ground and the air take awhile to catch up we won’t reach our coldest average temperature until the third week of January, a full month from now.
As for things you can easily observe, the most obvious solstitial effect is that you can look out your most southwest-facing window on Saturday and again on Sunday and see the Sunset at its leftmost position of the year. If you’re an early riser and see the Sun come up at around 7:15 AM, that will happen at its rightmost possible spot, in the east/southeast.
The matchup with our clocks is less clear-cut. We already had our darkest afternoon on December 7 and will not suffer our darkest morning, meaning the latest sunrise, until the first week of January. This is thanks to the lag between the days’ variable lengths caused by our planet moving at different speeds in our orbit and the inflexible length of each clock’s minutes and hours.

Learn more about the winter solstice and the first day of winter.

How Much Does Daylight Increase?

The psychologically optimistic part of all this is that starting on December 22, 2024, we will stop losing daily sunlight, which has been going on since June, and instead finally start to increase it!

This gain will be minuscule at first, just a matter of seconds a day, but will steadily grow until daily daylight expands by three daily minutes per day in March. The exact amount of brightness gain depends on your location.

During my annual Aurora odyssey in Alaska, which has brought me there each winter for the past 30 years, we’ve noticed the March daylight expansion to be an amazing 7 minutes per day. That adds up to almost a full hour of extra daily sunshine each and every week! It’s so abrupt that it jarringly alters sleeping patterns, party times, taking afternoon strolls instead of skipping them, and so on.
But in most of the “lower 48” states, the extra daily sunshine in March is closer to 20 minutes after each week, the most the majority of us ever experience, like a slowly opened gift package.

Let’s take a more relatable location in the Midwest, Chicago.

If you look at the ��’s daylight tool for Chicago, there are just 9 hours, 11 minutes of daylight during the week leading up to Christmas.
After this, daylight increases to 9 hours, 15 minutes by New Year’s Day.
By mid-January, the increase jumps to about two minutes a day.
By the 20th of February, daylight speeds up to three minutes per day! On the 20th, the day length is 10 hours, 53 minutes, and on the 21st, it’s 10 hours, 56 minutes.
In May, the increase slows back to two minutes gain per day
By the time we get to the summer solstice, the increase further slows to a minute a day, peaking at 15 hours and 16 minutes by the solstice.

See the �� Sunrise/Sunset Calculator for your day length!

The Night Skies on the Solstice

But to include other astronomy into all this, be aware that a radical planet change is also en route to us. Right now, at the winter solstice, every planet is nicely visible, while late spring will find them vanishing one by one.

So, this winter solstice is really a time of major activity here in the old solar system.

Solstice

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Comet Tsuchinshan is Here! How to See the "Comet of the Century"

Bob Berman — Fri, 18 Oct 2024 15:30:54 +0000

Comet Tsuchinshan is Here! How to See the "Comet of the Century" Bob Berman Fri, 10/18/2024 - 11:30

Photo Credit

NASA/Declan Deval

Will Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS Dazzle or Disappoint?

Bob Berman

October 18, 2024

Did anyone else catch the comet this week? C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS is making its 80,000-year orbit around the Sun and came from beyond Pluto to visit! Learn how to best view this visitor from outer space. The comet will be visible through October 26. Get the update.

Update on Comet Tsuchinshan-Atlas

If you’ve been trying to see the new comet with no luck, don’t give up. It suddenly became much easier, starting Thursday evening, October 17. From tonight and lasting until the end of the month, it is slowly dimming but getting easier. That’s because it’s no longer super low or standing in front of bright evening twilight. See viewing tips below!

Comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS seen on October 14, 7 to 8:30 PM. Credit: Jennifer Moffet, Montana Big Sky Country!

What Are Comets?

Comets are balls of frozen gases, rocks, and dust that blaze across our sky (unlike asteroids, which are made of rock and metal). They are best known for their awesome tail, which stretches out into the sky as the comet gets closer to the Sun.

Think of comets as comic snowballs—or, some people jokingly refer to comets as dirty snowballs! They are left over from the formation of stars and planets billions of years ago. Learn more about comets.

Comet NEOWISE in the pre-dawn skies over Deer Valley, Utah. July, 2024. Credit: NASA/Bill Dunford

Comet Tsuchinshan has Arrived!

The comet is officially named “C/2023 A3 Tsuchinshan-ATLAS.” The first issue is knowing how to say it. Although the comet is spelled Tsuchinshan, you should pronounce it as if it’s “Choo-Cheen-Shahn.”

Reports of sightings all over the world started flooding into social media and websites around the 14th of October with some exceptional comet photos. It’s very possible that Comet Tsuchinshan will become the brightest comet of the century in mid-October, as many claim.

You’ll see it for sure if you have binoculars, as long as you have clear skies!

The Best Day to See Comet Tsuchinshan

Since maximum brightness should take place when the comet is just 4 degrees from the Sun, it starts becoming visible to average skywatchers around October 15 through 18. For most, it was visible through binoculars and some by the naked eye. Go outside on the next clear night! The comet will be visible in dark skies through October 26, possibly the end of the month.

How to View Comet Tsuchinshan

The main pain is that this comet will be low in the sky. Evening twilight will still be bright when the comet is visible. So, look when the comet should be brightest—a few degrees above the western horizon after sunset.

Here’s how to view it:

When to look: Look between 7 and 8 PM, in full darkness. Wait for 20 minutes for your eyes to adjust.
Where to look: During the earlier part of that time frame, brilliant Venus appears very low in the west-southwest. The comet is now fairly high, directly above Venus.
If you have binoculars: Sweep the lowish (but not super low) western sky, and the comet will really pop out as soon as you point at it. It’s quite large and beautiful, with its long tail angling up and to the left.
To the unaided eye: The comet is now visible from dark rural sites, but from large towns and cities, it might still be invisible. Nonetheless, it may be worth a try anyway.
If you have trouble seeing it, you’ll probably have much more luck using a camera. Already, this comet is a photographer’s object. It shows up beautifully with a few seconds of exposure. And just like many Northern Lights displays, the photographic view looks far better than the way it appears in person.

Bottom Line: Comet Tsuchinshan should be visible to the naked eye if you know where to look. It will most certainly be a photographer’s comet! There will certainly be some gorgeous photos of this comet in the news.

And if bad weather keeps you from seeing it at all, just remember that a great comet typically comes along every 15 to 20 years on average. Our 21st century is still young. There will be others.

Comets & Meteors

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How to Find Epsilon Lyrae, the Double Double Star!

Bob Berman — Mon, 07 Oct 2024 18:33:43 +0000

How to Find Epsilon Lyrae, the Double Double Star! Bob Berman Mon, 10/07/2024 - 14:33

Photo Credit

vchal

Epsilon Lyrae is not just a binary star, but a double binary star.

Bob Berman

October 8, 2024

Double, double, toil, and trouble! Autumn is a great time to spot a double star! Today, we’ll highlight the famous Epsilon Lyrae—which is called the “Double Double.” Don’t worry; you don’t need to contact your optician. Read all about this very curious starry sight.

What is Epsilon Lyrae?

Commonly referred to as the “Double Double,” Epsilon Lyrae (pronounced EP-sill-on Lye Ree) is defined as a binary star consisting of binary stars. Confused? I’ll explain.

You’ve probably read or heard about a double star system, which has two Suns shining in the sky. Some of these pairs just appear close together when seen from Earth. Other star systems are called “binary” because they are physically bound and orbit each other.

Epsilon Lyrae appears as a single star, but upon close observation with the naked eye (or, easily, with binoculars), you can observe that it’s a binary star system. Two equally bright Suns orbit each other.

But that’s not what’s unusual. With further magnification through a telescope, it turns out that each of the two stars splits into two again! It’s a true physical double. What first appeared as a single star is actually a quadruple star system!

Epsilon Lyrae is also one of the easiest double stars to spot. Just focus on the brightest star above, Vega (pronounced VEE-guh), then look to the left. I’ll share viewing tips in a moment.

How Many Stars Make Up Epsilon Lyrae?

While it may appear as a single star, Epsilon Lyrae is a multiple-star system containing 5 stars:

Two binary star pairs that orbit each other (so, four stars)
A fifth star, discovered much later, orbits one of those star pairs and is only detectable using specialized equipment

How Far Away is Epsilon Lyrae?

The star system lies about 162 light years away. These stars are very large (over twice the mass of our Sun) and very hot (about 7,900K). The first pair of stars is equally bright with similar magnitude (4.7 and 4.6), while the secondary pair of stars is dimmer.

How to View the Double Double

Night falls earlier and earlier in autumn. As the sky darkens, the very first stars appear (at nearly 7 PM). Epsilon Lyrae is located in the constellation of Lyra, close to the bright star Vega.

1. Your first step is to locate Vega, the brightest star overhead. Its zenith position makes its identification easy. Along with Deneb and Altair, it’s known as the brightest star in the Summer Triangle. If you wait until full nighttime, which means 8 PM or so, Vega would no longer be perfectly overhead, though it’s still the brightest and highest star.

We raved about why Vega deserves our attention, but today, our focus is on the little companion to its left: Epsilon Lyrae.

To find Epsilon Lyrae, first spot bright star Vega, part of the Summer Triangle. Credit: https://elanvalley.org.uk/

2. Once you’ve found Vega, look more closely, and you’ll see several medium-faint stars near it. Four of these form a perfect parallelogram that supposedly represents a harp, along with a fifth star not part of the parallelogram. It’s this fifth star that holds our current interest.

Epsilon Lyrae is the star to the upper left of Vega (noted as E Lyr). Credit: Unistellar.

3. This is the very nearest star to Vega, which is another way of locating it. To make the identification foolproof, fish out those old binoculars you’ve got lying in some drawer and point them at Vega. Its two nearest companion stars will join Vega in that same field of view. You’ll immediately see that the nearest of them is not a single point of light but two medium-faint stars close together: Epsilon Lyrae 1 and Epsilon Lyrae 2.

With binoculars, you will be able to split the stars into two: Epsilon Lyrae 1 and Epsilon Lyrae 2. Credit: https://elanvalley.org.uk/

4. For the next step, you’ll definitely need a small telescope. Look again at Epsilon Lyrae 1 and 2. With telescopes with an aperture of six inches or above, you should see the two stars split into four! This is a telescopic four-star system, with two sets of suns whirling around each other while each duo orbits the other. For an appreciation of scale, each of the two-star pairs is separated by twice the diameter of our solar system.

As for the wide distance between the two pairs, it’s a fifth of a light-year and probably requires a million years to complete one orbital circuit around the other pair of stars.

Then, the first binary star can be split again into a four-star system. Epsilon Lyrae is double binary star. Credit: Julian Zoller

Celestial Eye Exam

One other curiosity that makes the Double Double special is that it’s the very best test of one’s ability to resolve sharp detail.

This isn’t a method of checking if your eyesight is 20/20 (the acuity that is characterized as normal). Surprisingly, many young people, especially in their early teens, have much keener eyesight than that. They routinely see detail beyond 20/20, with sharpness measuring 20/15, 29/13, or even 20/10. So today’s venture is a simple one—to see if you (or your children) have better than 20/20 vision.

Can you discern that Epsilon Lyrae is not just one but two stars using unaided eyes (ie., no binoculars or telescopes)? My theory is that vision better than 20/20 can “split” the stars, meaning they can be seen as separate objects rather than as a single dot.

When I lead an outdoor group of, say, 40 people, I’ll point out the star and ask if anyone can see it as two, not one. In a group that size, a few people, almost always among the youngsters aged 7 to 19, raise their hands and excitedly call out, “I see it!” while everyone else stares up morosely. Sometimes, to confirm their observation, I hold up both clenched fists toward the sky, assign letters to three possible angles of separation, and then ask whether the stars’ orientation was aligned as a, b, or c.

In all likelihood, most of us need binoculars to see this little star as being a double. It definitely requires a telescope to split once again.

Just think: The four stars that make up the single dot lie around 162 light-years from us, in contrast to nearby Vega, which is just 25 light-years from Earth. That’s quite some splendid choreography parading overhead these nights at nightfall!

Stars

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What Can You See on the Horizon? (And How Far Is It?)

Bob Berman — Fri, 20 Sep 2024 20:55:58 +0000

What Can You See on the Horizon? (And How Far Is It?) Bob Berman Fri, 09/20/2024 - 16:55

Photo Credit

Evan Austen/Shutterstock

Do Your Own Stonehenge Thing -- Without Moving a Single Rock

Bob Berman

November 14, 2024

We’ve all enjoyed a view of the sunset over the horizon, especially when we go to the beach. The horizon view offers many unique wonders of our amazing sky—all conveniently situated straight ahead! Let’s highlight a few of these strange and wonderful marvels. You can do your own Stonehenge thing. Without moving a single rock.

Some of us—like those who have overlooked the ocean—can see the sky all the way down to the horizon. Of course, most of us have our line of sight blocked at some point. But looking at the horizon can make a huge difference because every celestial object changes greatly when we see very low in the sky.

What Is the Horizon?

The horizon is that magical but invisible line that appears to separate our Earth from the sky. It’s the farthest place that we can see, where the sky and Earth touch. It seems as hard to reach as a rainbow or a pot of gold!

How Far is the Horizon?

The horizon is not as far as you might think. We know Earth is not endlessly flat (sorry, flat Earthers!). See my article on how fast the Earth spins—and why we don’t feel it. Our planet is an imperfect sphere (which bulges slightly at the equator).

So, we can mathematically figure out the distance. It simply depends on 1) your own height and 2) the terrain around you. There are some other factors, but let’s not get complicated.

For a six-foot-tall person standing at sea level and looking out to the sea, the horizon is about 3 miles away.
The same goes for sitting in a canoe if you’re right on the water line. This is why tall ships had crow nests back in the day.
Of course, if you’re on the top of a mountain, you could see many more miles away. On a small mountain that’s 1,300 feet tall, you can see 44.2 miles.

For the math nerds (including yours truly), here is a distance-to-horizon calculator.

Observing the Sky From the Horizon

Now, let’s get into observing the sky objects with a clear horizon. The first consequence of a very low elevation is that the star, planet, Sun, or Moon is dimmed big-time. Astronomers call this extinction. To truly make sense of this, consider how the atmosphere changes an object’s appearance.

You wouldn’t think there’d be much of a difference simply because clean, dry air is wonderfully transparent to visible light. For years, I’d wondered whether astronauts orbiting above our air really get a super-view of the universe. After all, if you’re on the ISS (International Space Station), you’re forced to peer through 5-inch-thick fused silica windows. That much material must surely degrade the view. But does being in space make up for it?

I got my chance 25 years ago when I interviewed astronaut Andy Thomas, the commander of the first Space Shuttle mission that followed the tragic Challenger disaster. I knew that Thomas had been raised in the Australian Outback, far from city lights, and was an amateur astronomer long before becoming a professional pilot. If anyone in the world could answer my question, it would surely be him.

I got straight to the point. “Which gives you the best view of the night sky—the heavens you enjoyed when you lived in the outback or the view from space, looking through the windows of the Space Shuttle?”

He didn’t hesitate. “The number of stars is probably comparable from both vantage points,” he said, “But looking through windows always narrows the view, compared with the natural wide-open sky when you’re far from any city.”

Bottom line: You don’t have to go to space to get the best view of the night sky!

The Australian Outback is one of the best places in the world to stargaze because of its dark skies and lack of artificial light. Credit: ColorsinLife

Challenges Observing on the Horizon

The biggest issue about observing on the horizon is that we’re looking through Earth’s atmosphere. The air contains not just water vapor, a transparent gas, but also innumerable tiny liquid droplets. These impart an overall whitening effect. People in the U.S. southeastern states see this routinely. There, a cloudless day sky is not deep blue at all but a pale milky blue or even white. That’s from all the tiny suspended water droplets.

But let’s back up further and consider just how much extra air—and whatever is mixed with it, such as water droplets, dust, and pollution particles—you’re looking through when you observe a low-down object.

The minimum amount of air between you and a star is encountered if it’s at the zenith or straight overhead. We call this “one atmosphere.” As we were taught in junior high school science class, each square inch of Earth’s surface sits beneath 15 pounds of air. When you instead gaze at a star that’s halfway up the sky, your slanted line of sight penetrates a longer path through the atmosphere, roughly equal to 1 ½ times as much air as when you gaze straight overhead.
When an object is truly low on the horizon—let’s say it’s the Moon about to set—its light must penetrate 40 atmospheres worth of air in order to reach your eyes. The air itself is quite transparent, as we’ve seen, but you’re also sighting through 40 times more water droplets, dust particles, and all the rest, and this dims its light by 11 magnitudes, a huge amount. That’s why it’s safe to watch the Sun setting, but it’ll harm your eyes when it’s higher in the sky.
Other effects kick in, too. There’s something called Rayleigh Scattering. This is a scattering or bouncing around of the light from molecule to molecule, and it happens far more to shorter light rays (meaning violet and blue colors) than to warmer, redder colors. This helps explain why stars, the Moon, and the Sun all appear reddish when they’re very low. Having the blue light Rayleigh Scattering also explains why distant mountains have a bluish cast.

All told, low-down objects are dimmed so very much that you simply cannot see any stars at all when they’re very near the horizon. Try it the next time you’re camping. Look around the sky. From such a rural setting, the night is wonderfully flooded with stars. But look more closely. There’s a wide band all around the sky, a starless belt above the horizon in all directions. There’s only darkness there. That’s because that 11-magnitude dimming effect renders even bright stars invisible.

Wonders Happening at the Horizon

But it’s not all doom and gloom. Some delightful effects happen on the horizon, strange things you won’t see anywhere else.

The Moon Illusion

A purely psychological effect befalls everyone who looks just above the horizon. Since you’re now seeing the Moon or constellations alongside earthly skyline objects in the distance, like faraway church steeples and such, the celestial object acquires a large relative size it didn’t have when the immensity of the celestial overhead hemisphere dwarfed it.

Now, as autumn begins, the Big Dipper is at its lowest position of the year, barely above the northern horizon during the first few hours after nightfall. As a result, the adjective “Big” has become truly appropriate. The giant dipping spoon now looks simply enormous.

Whether applied to constellations or any other celestial object, this increased-size effect is called the Moon Illusion. Maybe because that’s the object people particularly notice when it’s low. After all, when something is high overhead, like winter full Moons at midnight, you’d have to crane your neck to see it, and how many of us walk around at night with heads cocked at a steep angle? But a low Moon hovers directly in front of us where it’s more likely to be noticed.

Beyond its increased visibility when low, the Moon Illusion kicks in to make every horizon-hugging Moon seem reliably gigantic. Did you see the Harvest Moon in September, when the Moon is occasionally a bit closer to Earth?

Moon Illusion: The Harvest Moon rising behind the Washington Monument. Credit: NASA

Since the reddening effect is also happening then, it’s common to observe the entire combo plate—a low, huge-looking orange Moon, one of the sky’s most eye-catching spectacles. Learn more about the Moon Illusion in my article.

The Green Flash

Many have heard of the Green Flash, but too few people deliberately look for it. It happens. Yes, it’s right on the horizon—when the Sun has almost finished setting, and that orange ball is almost completely below the horizon.

The tiny remaining topmost piece of reddish Sun, a mere point-like speck of Sun, will sometimes turn an intense emerald for one to five seconds before it too sets. It doesn’t usually flash, meaning it gets more brilliant. Rather, it’s a quiet phenomenon, with the orange dot merely turning green with no fanfare.

The key to catching it is having a truly unblocked ocean horizon. I’ve looked for it at every such sunset, perhaps 250 times in total, and clearly seen it about 25 times. If my experience is typical, expect to see the green flash perhaps one out of ten times you look for it.

The green flash at sunset over the Pacific. Credit: David McManus

What causes such a strange effect? Well, the refraction of light causes the Sun’s various colors to bend at slightly different angles. On the horizon, this refraction effect is at its strongest, with the sun’s red image as its lowest-down one, its overlapping orange persona a bit higher, yellow still higher, and so on. The uppermost solar image is blue, but the long path through the air at sunset has totally scattered out the blue light so that the actual uppermost solar image is its green one.

Hence, if conditions are just right—meaning the air is homogeneous or the same temperature between you and the setting sun—all the other colored versions of the sunset before the final uppermost green one, and it’s this final topmost piece of the green Sun that produces the Green Flash.

Chasing Our Shadow

My favorite horizon phenomenon happens every clear evening. The Sun makes us all cast shadows, and our planet Earth casts a shadow, too. This must, of course, play out opposite from the Sun’s location, and so it does.

So each day at sunset, if you put your back to the setting Sun so that you’re facing east, you’ll see a dark blue-gray band hugging the horizon. This is Earth’s shadow heading out into space! It’s sometimes called the Twilight Wedge, and the pink sky above it, where the Sun is still shining, is sometimes called the Belt of Venus.

But never mind those terms. Just be sure to look east any clear evening around sunset and be aware of the truly epic nature of that horizontal dark band overlying the eastern horizon. It’s never absent!

The blue-gray horizontal band on the horizon is Earth’s shadow, often called The Twilight Wedge. The pink above it is where the Sun is still shining. Photo credit: Bob Berman

When we gaze at the horizon on the beach or from a mountain, we also widen our peripheral vision, as our ancestors did when scanning the seas or land for threats. Knowing it’s all calm ahead also calms us.

So, gaze at our horizon and enjoy its natural wonders—conveniently situated straight ahead.

Space

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All About the REAL Betelgeuse, the Strangest Star

Bob Berman — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 19:55:07 +0000

All About the REAL Betelgeuse, the Strangest Star Bob Berman Tue, 09/17/2024 - 15:55

Betelgeuse, one of the most massive stars in the night sky

Photo Credit

NASA

Betelgeuse, Beetlejuice!

Bob Berman

September 18, 2024

You may have heard about the new Beetlejuice movie. It’s just in time for the seasonal return of the star for which it’s named—Betelgeuse! This monstrous, ultrabright star marks the shoulder of the well-known Orion the Hunter, so you can easily spot it! Plus, it’s one of the weirdest stars in the sky—one that caused a scare recently. Let’s dig into the strange!

What is Betelgeuse, the Star?

Betelgeuse is a unique celestial object. It’s classified as a “red supergiant”—one of the most massive stars in the night sky, which appears orange-red in color. Betelgeuse is nearing the end of its life (stars expand as they age). In fact, it’s considered the most likely star in the night sky to go supernova—and explode.

As seen from Earth, Betelgeuse marks the left shoulder of Orion. We’ll get into viewing tips later. First, let’s talk about its unusual name and the various odd pronunciations, which are merely starting points for arguably the most dangerous and extreme of all the night’s inhabitants.

The Story of Betelgeuse’s Name

It’s that peculiar name that starts everything going. In the original 1988 movie, the credits listed the lead character, played by Michael Keaton, as “Betelgeuse” in some places (matching the celestial object’s spelling) and “Beetlejuice or Beetle Juice” in others (corresponding to the main character). But long before any film was written and shot, many struggled with the star’s pronunciation; it was never unusual to hear “Beetle juice” from celestial beginners.

Those trying to ferret out the origins of that odd name found only confusion in standard references. If you look it up, you’ll get completely different meanings for Betelgeuse.

The Random House college dictionary claims it means “Shoulder of the Giant.”
Webster’s New World dictionary says Betelgeuse means “House of the Twins.”
Wikipedia states the name means “Hand of the Central One.” Everyone says something else.

You’d think the published books on “Star Names” would settle the matter. But experienced astronomers and journalists long ago found an obscure, accurate source for deciphering cryptic star titles. It’s really a story of its own.

Betelgeuse is one of the largest, brightest stars in the night sky! Credit: A. Block, Steward Observatory, University of Arizona

Eighty years ago, a serious amateur astronomer who was also an attorney and an Arabic language scholar traveled to Middle Eastern countries to pore through original sources to uncover the true meaning of various stars whose names were coined thousands of years ago—and also to determine how regional pronunciations changed during the intervening centuries. After all, two-thirds of all the star names were created by that region’s desert-dwellers, and they still populate every official astronomy chart.

This remarkable man, George A. Davis, Jr, with the help of libraries in Buffalo and those at Cornell, Harvard, and Princeton universities, produced a 23-page paper entitled “Pronunciations, Derivations, and Meanings of a Selected List of Star Names,” which was published in the 1940’s in a now-defunct astronomy magazine. Reprinted by Sky Publishing corporation in 1971, its yellowing pages remain a precious possession of your ��’s astronomy editor. And here’s some very good news. They’ve made it available for free online. Trust me: This will be your go-to source whenever you wonder how a particular star got its name, or what it means, or how you should pronounce it.

When it comes to Betelgeuse, the bright reddish star that marks Orion’s left shoulder, Davis discovered its name was incredibly old. He found it was originally Ibt Al-Jauza long before the Arabs began their star-naming, and it incredibly dates all the way to the ancient Sumerians. Back then, the prominent winter star pattern was not seen as a hunter but as a sheep. And the name literally means “Armpit of the Sheep.” This makes it a candidate for the least glamorous name in the galaxy.

How to Pronounce Betelgeuse

Davis also showed why it should be pronounced like astronomers do – as BET’l’jooz. You can probably “bet” on that and shouldn’t buy into the image of “juice” emanating from an insect you accidentally stepped on. In any case, it’s clear that Tim Burton and the makers of the new movie version took no chances and simply changed the spelling to only allow for their preferred humorous pronunciation.

One of the Largest Stars in the Sky

But there’s nothing humorous about the actual star. It’s seriously imposing and famously one of the very largest in the entire sky. It’s so massive that telescopes on Earth can even discern its surface.

Just visualizing its enormity is fun all by itself. My favorite model, which I created during my college days, is that if Betelgeuse was denoted by an enormous orange ball standing as high as a ten-story building, then our planet Earth could be represented by the period at the end of this sentence.

Only one of all the night’s bright stars gives it any competition. The red supergiant Antares marking the heart of Scorpius the Scorpion is a pretty good Betelgeuse look-alike, and each has a fan club believing their star is the record-holding biggest of all. What prevents settling the competition is distance.

How Far Away Is Betelgeuse From Earth

Both red supergiants, Betelgeuse and Antares, are somewhere around 400 to 700 light-years away, which is too far for actual parallax measurements using direct trigonometry. Every few years, researchers manage to somewhat refine the distance to one or the other, and then a new “biggest star” is announced to howls of predictable protest, only to have the process reverse itself a few years later.

A bigger issue is that Betelgeuse is not just huge but also heavy. It weighs 10 to 20 times more than our Sun, and such stars explode into supernovas in their old age. Well, Betelgeuse is indeed in its old age. When it dies, it will go supernova.

What is a Supernova?

A supernova is a massive explosion that raises the star’s brilliance—typically 100 million times brighter than before—so that it often outshines the combined light of all the billions of stars in its entire galaxy. The event is catastrophic for everything in its neighborhood.

But here’s where we got lucky. Since Betelgeuse is up to 700 light years away, its eventual supernova will not endanger life on Earth. Nonetheless, its supernova would send a concentrated blast of particles and radiation, which would increase Earthly mutations and alter our planet’s life for centuries to come.

Visually, meanwhile, it would grow so intensely brilliant it might not be easy or safe to look at. Certainly its dazzle would create nightly shadows whenever it was up, and even turn the night sky a dark blue during the year it retained its initial brilliance.

The ultra-bright orange star marks Orion’s left shoulder. Credit: Yuriy Kulik

When to See Betelgeuse

Its strange name, pronunciation, danger, superlative size—we hardly needed a movie to make even casual sky-observers want to check it out for themselves.

But if you do need tips to find it, it’s easiest to catch at this time of year (near early autumn) when it’s rising. Then, it’s the only reddish star low in the east and precisely left of the prominent vertical line of three stars that forms Orion’s famous belt. (I say vertical because when the Hunter rises, he starts out in a prone orientation.)

In late September, Betelgeuse rises around 1 AM.
But it rises two hours earlier per month, so it’s low in the east at 11 PM on Halloween.
It’s there at a more convenient 9 PM on Thanksgiving.
With Daylight Time over, it’s up at 6 PM by Christmas and the solstice and out all night.
It remains dominant through the end of April.

When Will Betelgeuse Explode?

Observers have had a lot of fun with Betelgeuse in recent years. We’ve always been aware its brightness slowly changes, with a small irregular alteration over the course of three years. This is when the huge star temporarily swells up and grows even larger like an inflating balloon, an internal instability that will someday get out of hand and cause its complete destruction.

In early 2000, its brightness drastically changed. While we stared in disbelief, Betelgeuse lost half its light! Suddenly, it no longer dominated the upper portion of the Hunter’s body; it merely matched its other shoulder, which was marked by the non-eye-catching (2nd magnitude) star Bellatrix. Everyone had the same thought: Does this dramatic change mean something is unfolding inside the star? Is the supernova now imminent?

This NASA image shows how Betelgeuse became fainter in early 2020. In the first two panels, a hot blob of plasma is ejected from the surface. In panel three, the gas rapidly expands outward, then cools into an enormous cloud. The panel three, the huge dust cloud blocks the star’s light.

But 2000 came and went, with Betelgeuse recovering from appearing unusually dim and back to its usual self. Astronomers resumed their habitual shrugging. Yes, it’s still expected to explode in a spectacular supernova. But the star could “go supernova” tomorrow or not for another 10,000 years.

Using a backyard telescope doesn’t help settle anything. Unlike most of our galaxy’s members, Betelgeuse isn’t a double star nor belongs to a multiple-star system, so there’s nothing to see but a bright, companionless orange dot.

It doesn’t sit inside a nebula because it’s not a newborn. Nor is it emitting a gassy ring like some other old stars. In fact, the absence of any nebulosity around Betelgeuse is a helpful part of its story.

The image of a single reddish star surrounded by nothing is at the same time reassuring and perilous, like a ticking time bomb. Reassuring because it’s still intact. Dangerous because this will change, big time—and we won’t know until it happens. So we watch and wait.

Perhaps we could kill some time by seeing the movie.

Stars

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What Makes the Hunter's Moon Special?

Bob Berman — Tue, 17 Sep 2024 04:00:00 +0000

What Makes the Hunter's Moon Special? Bob Berman Tue, 09/17/2024 - 00:00

An elk holds the Moon in his antlers.

Photo Credit

Gallinago/Shutterstock

Is this Full Moon Bigger, Brighter, and Redder?

Bob Berman

October 4, 2024

This year, the full Hunter’s Moon rises on Thursday, October 17! This is one of the two full Moons that enjoy an official astronomical name. So, will it be bigger, brighter, and redder? Here’s all you need to know!

What Is the Hunter’s Moon?

People like objects to have names. While the full Moon is always recognizable—and indeed the only phase that’s out all night long—perhaps most folks wish that each was a bit more special. There are 13 full Moons each year, making each one nice but far from rare. Maybe that’s why we want to attach a unique label to each full Moon, be it blood Moon, Super Moon, strawberry Moon, or whatever.

Of course, many Native American tribes had a reason; they named the Moons to track the seasons. The full Moon coming up this month was called the Corn Ripe Moon by the Taos. Similarly, it was named the Ripe Corn Moon by the Laguna. The Nez Perce called this the Falling Leaves Moon, and it’s hard to argue with that.

But it was the seasonal Moon name used by the Algonquin tribe that also became a term used by modern astronomers: the Hunter’s Moon.

Why Is the Hunter’s Moon Special?

The Hunter’s Moon is the first full Moon after the Harvest Moon (which was in September this year), which in turn is the closest full Moon to the autumn equinox. Because of this, the upcoming Hunter’s Moon shares a similar behavior. The Harvest and Hunter’s Moons are the annual full Moons whose nightly appearances are delayed by the most minimal amount. I’ll explain.

Normally, the Moon rises about one hour later each night. But the Harvest and the Hunter’s Moons come up only about half an hour later each night, an effect that begins a couple of nights before this full Moon and runs for 3 or 4 nights in a row.

In 2024, the Hunter’s Moon is 100% full on October 17. However, it may look like a full round Moon on October 18 and even on October 19, rising around the time of sunset for several evenings in a row.

So, those who are outdoors participating in some evening twilight activity, which in October in bygone centuries was usually hunting, but for modern sky watchers who might simply be camping out, find the full or nearly full Moon rising around sunset to provide additional welcome light for several evenings in a row.

That’s the whole story. It’s a tale of extra moonlight at convenient hours just after sunset.

Moon Illusion?

Bigger, Brighter, and Redder

Is a Hunter’s Moon bigger, brighter, or redder than any other Moon? It may appear this way from Earth, but the Moon itself is not actually bigger, nor does it emit more light.

So, why the mystique?

The Hunter’s Moon will reach peak illumination in the afternoon. It will be below the horizon at this time, so we’ll have to wait until sunset to watch it take its place in the sky.
And because the Hunter’s Moon provides extra light at sunset, many people look for this Moon at sunset—when it’s near the horizon.

Any Moon near the horizon will appear bigger because the horizon provides more size perspective. It’s called the Moon Illusion.

When you look at a full moon near the horizon, it often looks more red or orange because the light rays have to travel further into the atmosphere before they get to you.

The short-wavelength blues and greens scatter before you can see them, and only the longer wavelengths (reds, oranges) are left to be seen.
Most of the red light, which is the least scattered, enters our eyes. Hence, the light from the Moon appears red or orange.

To conclude, don’t imagine that the Hunter’s Moon is special because it looks different from any other. While it provides extra moonlight, it does not appear bigger, smaller, redder, dimmer, or brighter.

However, it does indeed provide that extra moonlight for several nights in a row. Otherwise, it’s just another beautiful full Moon. And that’s enough for me.

Find more information, see the ��’s October Full Moon Guide!

Moon phase

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A Perfect Time to See Saturn

Bob Berman — Wed, 28 Aug 2024 18:15:15 +0000

A Perfect Time to See Saturn Bob Berman Wed, 08/28/2024 - 14:15

Saturn in Opposition

Bob Berman

August 29, 2024

Saturn

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How Long Does It Take to Get to Mars? Days, Months, or Years?

Bob Berman — Tue, 27 Aug 2024 12:44:27 +0000

How Long Does It Take to Get to Mars? Days, Months, or Years? Bob Berman Tue, 08/27/2024 - 08:44

Photo Credit

Alones

The Mars Journey Timeline

Bob Berman

November 6, 2024

Many of us are fascinated with the idea of traveling to other worlds, especially Mars. The truth is that the solar system is constructed to give us only Mars as a suitable planet. Let’s explore how long it would take to journey to Mars and other fun space travel facts.

Traveling to Mars

Exploring is in our nature. Even in early childhood, we all had the itch to discover. We explored the attic, and if we found some big old heavy chest up there, we couldn’t wait to see what was inside. As teenagers, we rode our bikes ever farther. After college, many of us went overseas.

When it comes to off-Earth travel, we are limited. Mercury and Venus are too hot, way too hot. From Jupiter on outward, no planet has a surface, at least not a solid surface. Nowhere to land. Your rocket would just keep descending into thicker and thicker layers of gases and then gooey liquids. That leaves Mars alone. Mars is on average 142 million miles away from Earth according to NASA.

Its temperatures are not too crazy. The surface of Mars can even reach 40°F at times. Probes show a sandy, rocky terrain that resembles the deserts of the southwestern US. Though half our own planet’s diameter, Mars has the same land area as our world since it has no oceans. And our landers, starting with the twin Vikings in 1976, revealed no poisonous gases or flimsy surfaces incapable of supporting a landing spacecraft. Of course, we’ll go!

Beyond the romance are practical reasons. What if we badly mess up our own world? Shouldn’t we have a backup? There’s even some water ice buried in deep-shadowed Martian crevices. We already have the technology to turn that into oxygen for breathing and hydrogen for fuel. It’s starting to sound like Shangri-La or at least summer camp.

Mars and Earth have few similarities. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltech

How Would We Get to Mars?

Unmanned Martian probes are now almost routine. But the great number of mission failures show it’s not exactly easy. You can’t just aim a rocket at it; that wouldn’t work because Mars, orbiting at 15 miles a second, wouldn’t be in that spot when we arrived. Instead, you use something called a Hohman Transfer Orbit. It gets you there using minimum fuel and granting you maximum payload.

Have you not heard of the Hohmann Transfer Orbit? It’s a simple concept. Johannes Kepler told us in the 17th century that every planet moves in a path that’s not a circle but an ellipse. Orbital ellipses make each planet regularly arrive at the perihelion or near the point to the Sun, which Earth annually reaches in the first week of January.

Then, on the opposite side of its oval-shaped orbit, planets reach a far point, which we hit every July 4, give or take a day. So when we send any rocket to Mars, we actually blast it more or less forward a bit in Earth’s orbit but at a higher speed, which sends the rocket into a new orbit around the Sun. The spacecraft’s orbit is an ellipse of the right shape and size so that it reaches its far point from the Sun at the Martian orbit’s distance.

If both Earth and Mars magically disappeared, the rocket, using no additional fuel, would continue in this orbit forever, coming back to Earth’s distance from the Sun at its perihelion point, whipping around and then heading outward again to reach its aphelion position at the Martian orbit distance.

Orbits of Mars and Earth during the 259 days of flight

How Long Does It Take to Get to Mars?

The tricky part of knowing how long it will take to travel is calculating exactly when to launch. That’s because when your spacecraft reaches Martian orbit, you want Mars to be arriving at that exact spot at the same time.

Then, the Red Planet’s gravity can help you slow down, capture your craft, and, with a few engine burns, let you enter its thin atmosphere for a nice, soft parachute landing.

This Hohmann transfer orbit requires 259 days to reach Mars from Earth (or around 8 ½ months). You can choose to burn more fuel or carry a lighter payload and get there a bit faster, but figure at least half a year at best.

We could have done this already if we only needed a one-way trip without returning home. Say you get some volunteers, maybe people with serious credit card debt. Depressive types who think Earth is overrated and are willing to stake out a permanent new home. The Alaska mentality. So you’d send an advance rocket stocked with food, medical supplies, a bunch of MP3 files and movies, and a disassembled, modular-type shelter so that all such stuff is awaiting the incoming visitors. Now you send your colonists. There, done.

Of course, if the astronauts do want to come home, that changes things eventually. Now, you need to start with a rocket having enough fuel and air for the almost 1 ½-year roundtrip. This is big and expensive, and we’re not quite there yet.

Unfortunately, rescue or return missions to Mars can only happen when the planets align, which occurs every 26 months. At an absolute minimum, that’s more than 2 years between visits.

But there are other considerations, too.

What Other Factors Affect a Journey to Mars?

The biggest issue is that too many people over-romanticize the Mars thing. Maybe the Red Planet brochure needs to offer a more realistic picture.

First, Mars has no air. Or at least nothing breathable. Its atmosphere is so thin that the surface pressure is less than what we have atop Mt. Everest. See more facts about Earth’s neighbor, planet Mars.
And even that super-skimpy vapor is almost pure carbon dioxide. No oxygen. This means you can’t just stroll around outside your spacecraft or sealed modular home. You’re permanently stuck in a spacesuit on the Martian surface. Wouldn’t that grow old pretty quickly?
And you’d encounter no living creatures or plant life. And no water, Earth’s most magical compound. You’d never feel a breeze on your skin or hear birdsong or rustling leaves. This brings up an entire psychological issue: Does some basic part of us need earthly sensory experiences? Perhaps it even goes more deeply. Meaning, are we, in some sense, pieces of planet Earth itself?

Are we children of our world, creatures of Earth with millions of years of genetic programming connected with all things earthlike? Bacteria come and go in our systems, and insects land on our skin. Is there some ultra-deep connection without which we simply couldn’t live?

We look at zoo animals confined to a small, synthetic zone built to somewhat resemble their home region. What do they do? They pace restlessly, relentlessly. One senses that they feel some deep alienation, of being apart from their home. So, how would humans fare when they no longer receive the slightest aroma of anything? There are no mutating clouds overhead, no contact with strangers, and no life of any kind.

Speaking of which, what if they send along the wrong companion for you? You’d be trapped with however many crew members are on the ship. What if you’ve come to hate any of them? Or, less dramatically, simply find a few of them annoying. Well, now you’re stuck with an irksome character day after day—for over 2 years before you can return.

Added to that alienation thing and the total absence of earthly sensory experiences, might crew members get seriously nutty? Maybe even psychotic?

Let’s not “go there.” Let’s keep it optimistic. Even so, we’ve already seen that you’re on a planet isolated from everything familiar, with day-to-day life a struggle.

You’ve got to find and melt ice to make water and create oxygen; you couldn’t possibly bring enough on board.
You’ve got to endure nonstop elevated radiation, which isn’t good for you. See more ways living on Mars would affect the human body.
If you suddenly need extensive dental work or suffer appendicitis, there are no hospital facilities, and even if there were, they probably wouldn’t accept your plan.

Remember that woman researcher in the Antarctic a few years ago? A doctor herself, she recognized that the growing lump in her breast was probably cancer. But there are no facilities at the South Pole that could have helped her. Ultimately, our government flew in a risky rescue plane to land in the pitch-black conditions of the Antarctic winter. But if it was Mars? The nearest help would be a 17-month round-trip evacuation.

Another issue is the public reaction back home. Amid the current optimistic, Alaska-bound excitement of colonizing another planet, what would happen when actual struggles became widely recognized? Or, God forbid, one of the crew members, whom the world would have long gotten to know on a televised and Web first-name basis, the way everyone was familiar with Neil and Buzz on the Moon, what if they died? A stroke or appendicitis or something treatable had they been on Earth? Wouldn’t that instantly cool the popular ardor of wanting to try living off-planet?

Or consider: Many cite Mars as attractive because Earth’s population, now at around 8 billion, is making us increasingly crowded. Earth’s urban population surpassed its rural numbers in 2007. It again resurrected the Alaska mentality, the attraction for an uncrowded life. Yet there are many terrestrial places where no one wants to live even though they’d have it all to themselves. Why are virtually no habitations in the Sahara or Atacama? Or villages built on lofty mountain plateaus in the Himalayas? Sure, life would be tough in such spots, but at least you could breathe the air.

Mars is incomparably more dangerous as a place to attempt simple survival. Such super-taxing everyday life is more than merely a totally synthetic environment surrounded by computers, LEDs, and the constant humming of air purifiers.

What Would the Mars Journey Cost?

High technology also means astronomical costs. Round-trip transportation alone would amount to at least $25 million per colonist.

When the world fully learns that such expense doesn’t necessarily buy anybody a good time, wouldn’t the queue of “I want to go next!” volunteers visibly shrink? This writer isn’t suggesting that this scenario is inevitable or even likely; it’s merely a possible side of the Mars-Colony dream that has perhaps received inadequate consideration.

It’s not hard to imagine a point when some psychologists publish papers suggesting that perhaps the Mars-colonization vogue isn’t borne of an innate human desire to explore. Rather, they may reason that its etiology could arise from a different human characteristic: restlessness. Or the compulsive need to always experience the “next new thing.” Ecologists would get their own turn chiming in, which is sometimes expressed even today: We’re fooling ourselves if we imagine that obtaining a “spare” planet if we totally mess up Earth might constitute a workable solution or bring human salvation.

Because—Earth is inside us. Our planet is unique and precious beyond words. There simply can be no true “spare.” Instead, a different focus is demanded. That we finally learn to be gentle and sensible with our home world. Because, in fact, there really is no other.

Mars

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