Secrets of the Sky
Sit back and immerse yourself in the wonders of the Universe from the comfort of your home.
Skynotes: January 2022
Upcoming events
Valentine’s Day Under the Stars
Celebrate Valentine's Day with your loved one at our romantic Space Age themed adults-only Planetarium event.
Planetarium Nights
Experience science and art in an evening of immersive cinema for adults 18 years and over.
Plus What’s in the Sky Tonight (WITST), a presenter-led tour through the night sky.
Space Missions for 2022
There are at least 20 space missions anticipated this year, including the American Orion and Artemis spacecraft to the moon and probes to the asteroids Didymos and Psyche, a European probe to Jupiter moons, a Russian Lunar lander, and a European/Russian Mars rover. China, Japan and India have ongoing space missions as well. For details and links see Planetary Missions for 2022 and SkyatNight Upcoming Milestones
And the joint American, European and Canadian James Webb Space Telescope that finally, after exhaustive testing and preparation and a flawless launch on Christmas Day, will be a major interest this year as it reaches Lagrange Point L2 far beyond the moon’s orbit, and begins infrared observations into the birth of stars and formation of planetary systems, our solar system and exoplanets, the earliest galaxies, the end of the ‘Dark Ages’ and first light of the infant universe, and much more. Goddard Space Flight Centre has the latest news.
ESA and YouTube videos
Fact Sheets and Mission Kits
Melbourne Sun times
| Date | Rise | Set | Day length | Solar noon* |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Sat 1 | 6.01am | 8.45pm | 14.44hrs | 1.23pm |
| Tue 11 | 6.10am | 8.45pm | 14.34hrs | 1.27pm |
| Fri 21 | 6.20am | 8.41pm | 14.20hrs | 1.31pm |
| Mon 31 | 6.31am | 8.34pm | 14.01hrs | 1.33pm |
*When the sun is at its highest, crossing the meridian or local longitude.
Moon phases
| Phase | Date |
|---|---|
| New Moon | Mon 3rd |
| First Quarter | Mon 10th |
| Full Moon | Tue 18th |
| Third Quarter | Wed 26th |
Moon perigee (closest to Earth) will be 357,264km on Thursday 13th
Moon apogee (furthest from Earth) will be 406,580 km on Saturday 29th
Planets
Mercury continues to be too close to the sun, rising and setting during daytime and not visible this month.
Venus will not be visible for most of this month as it is passing in front of the sun. It will, however, reappear towards the end of the month as the ‘morning star’ visible in the east from around 4:45am before fading in the dawn light.
Mars is back later this month after completing its pass behind the sun. It will rise in the east about 4am before it too becomes lost in the early morning light.
Jupiter, soon to move behind the sun, remains visible in the west this month from 9pm before setting around 11pm early in the month, and then progressively earlier until by the end of the month it will set around 10.45pm.
Saturn is no longer visible, but after it takes a pass behind the sun it will appear in the east in our morning skies in March.
Meteors
The month’s most active shower, the Quadrantids, is a Northern Hemisphere shower peaking on the 4th. In the Southern Hemisphere is Eta Carinids active from 14th-27th with typically faint meteors of only 2 or 3 per hour at its peak on the 21st. This shower is centred near the faint star Eta Carina located near the Southern Cross. It is high in the south midnight to dawn, an ideal time for meteor observing.
International Space Station
ISS orbits every 90 minutes at an average distance of 400 km appearing like a bright star moving slowly across the night sky. Here are some of the brightest passes expected this month over Melbourne and Central Victoria:
Evening
- Sunday 2nd 9:48pm-9:53pm West-South-West to North-North-East
Morning
- Monday 24th 5:19am-5:24am North-North-West to East-South-East
- Thursday 27th 4:27am-4:31am East-North-East to South-East
Heavens Above gives predictions for visible passes of space stations and major satellites, live sky views and 3D visualisations. Be sure to first enter your location under ‘Configuration’.
Stars & Constellations
Summertime evenings are wonderful for stargazing. Looking east and north-east, especially, will reward you with a rich collection of constellations, asterisms, interesting stars, and star clusters. And behind or beyond the local foreground region of our galaxy, you can enjoy the majestic Milky Way arcing across the entire sky with its dense concentrations of stars and numerous dark interstellar dust clouds.
In the south
The Southern Cross (Crux) and the nearby Pointers (Alpha and Beta Centauri) are easy to spot low to the horizon in early evening. Adjacent to the Southern Cross is the dark dust cloud known as the Coal Sack that forms a veil that blocks the light of more distant stars reaching us. Enjoy this ESA page and ESA video.
High in the south on their own are our two neighbouring galaxies the Large and Small Clouds of Magellan (160,000 and 200,000 light years away respectively). From the southern hemisphere they are a treat and always visible in our skies which is not the case for equivalent latitudes in the northern hemisphere.
In the east
Look directly east and it will be easy to spot the brightest star at night, Sirius, the principal star in the constellation of Canis Major (Greater Dog). Sirius is a binary star system some 8.6 light years from, twice the mass of our sun and with a greater size, surface temperature and luminosity. Every culture that has a stargazing tradition has recognised Sirius as significant in stories or for marking events in the calendar.
In the north-east
The three bright stars forming a short line is the asterism known as The Saucepan or Pot. They also form the belt of Orion the hunter who lies upside down from our southern hemisphere perspective, as does his hunting dog Canis Major. Orion’s sword or sword sheath (the handle of the Saucepan) contains the spectacular Orion Nebula - the birthplace of new stars. A pair of binoculars will reveal its fuzzy appearance proving it is no point-like star. Above left is the blue supergiant star Rigel (one of his feet) and below right is the red supergiant star Betelgeuse (one of his shoulders).
In the north
The Hyades, an open cluster of stars some 150 light years away forms an inverted V. This indicates the head of Taurus the bull. The very obvious red giant star at its lower right corner (from our southern view) is Aldebaran which sits as a foreground star at a little over 65 light years from us. To the left is the beautiful Pleiades Cluster (or Seven Sisters), a group of young blue giant stars that formed together and are bound under their mutual gravity. In many cultures this particular close clustering of roughly similar bright stars represents a group of women.
Distance and time
All these night time objects tell us something important – in astronomy distance is an indication of past times. Despite light travelling at 300,000 km per second and covering 9.4 trillion km in a year, it takes time to journey across the vastness of space. Moonlight travels for 1.3 seconds to shine down on us. The Sun’s light reaches us in eight minutes. Neptune’s faint light takes about four hours. From Alpha Centauri, the nearest star system, it is a little over 4 years, and from Sirius it is 8.6 years. Starlight from the Pleiades takes 444 years and from the Orion nebula 1500 years. Light from the stars at the core of our galaxy journeys for 26,000 years before we see it. From the Large Magellanic Cloud it is 160,000 years and from the large spiral Andromeda galaxy some 2.5 million years. For objects at the greatest distances that have been measured the light travel time is billions of years.
As you gaze out at night you are witnessing objects as they once were. We see their recent past if close to us, or their deep past if more distant. Whether near or far away, you are always looking back in time.
On this day
1st 1801, the first asteroid, Ceres, was discovered by Giuseppi Piazzi.
2nd 1959, first detection of solar wind by Luna 1 (USSR) as it passed the moon.
4th 1958, the first satellite, Sputnik (USSR), fell back into the atmosphere and disintegrated after 11 weeks in orbit.
4th 1959, first human-made object enters heliocentric orbit, Luna 1 (USSR).
4th 1643, birth of Isaac Newton famous for studies in optics, the reflecting telescope, laws of gravitation and motion, and co-creator of calculus.
5th 2005, discovery of the most massive and second largest dwarf planet, Eris at 2,300 km diameter, by team led by Mike Brown at Palomar Observatory.
8th 1942, birth of Stephen Hawking, theoretical physicist, cosmologist and science celebrity.
11th 1787, discovery of Uranus’s first two moons, Titania and Oberon by William Herschel.
7th 1610, Galileo Galilei’s discovery of Jupiter's four largest moons: Io, Europa, Callisto and Ganymede.
16th 1969, first docking in space and first crew exchange in space between Soyuz 4 and Soyuz 5 (USSR) in Earth orbit.
18th 1916, meteorite falls onto occupied house in Baxter, Missouri (USA).
19th 2006, New Horizons spacecraft (USA) launched to Pluto for its 2015 fly-by.
23rd 2003, final communication with Pioneer 10 (USA), first interplanetary probe to Jupiter, which later left the solar system.
25th 2006, first icy-rocky planet discovered orbiting a main sequence star, a red dwarf at 21,500 light years from Earth.
27th 1967, fire in Apollo 1 (USA) command module kills crew of three in ground test at Kennedy Space Centre.
28th 1986, space shuttle Challenger (USA), the 10th shuttle flight, explodes 73 seconds after lift-off killing all seven crew and halting the program for 32 months.
31st 1961, first hominid in space, chimpanzee Ham, in Mercury-Redstone 2 (USA), who survived and lived in zoos until 1983.
31st 1958, discovery by James Van Allen of radiation belts of charged particles from the Sun that surround Earth and which now bear his name.
31st 1958, Explorer 1 the first successful American satellite launch, and first satellite to carry instruments into space.