March 2002

By Steve Stefanik

The month of March couldn’t be more appropriately named as Spring comes "marching in" at 2:16 p.m. EST on the 20^th day as a "procession of planets" marches across the sky and an unexpected cosmic comet C2002 C1 (Ikeya-Zhang) "marches" onto the scene.

The action begins about an hour before sunset just above the western horizon when the –3.9 magnitude planet Venus returns to the night sky as the "evening star". If you view it through binoculars or a telescope you will see that it is almost fully illuminated.

Not far from Venus in the southwest you can still see the planet Mars among the dim stars of the constellation Aries, its Grecian namesake. It has shrunk to a mere 5 arc seconds in apparent diameter and dimmed to +1.3 magnitude. Through a telescope it is all but a "faceless" sphere. The waxing crescent moon will be 4 degrees south of the planet on March 17.

Continuing eastward, the next planet in the procession is Saturn, which is relatively easy to locate among the stars of the constellation Taurus the bull. Look for the zero magnitude "butterscotch" yellow planet near the bright red-orange first magnitude star Aldebaran in the familiar "V" of stars which represents the head of the bull. Through a telescope you will see its shadow cast upon its rings this month. On the nights of the 18^th and 19^th Saturn will temporarily "gain" another moon. The 8^th magnitude asteroid Vesta will appear to be within 30 arc minutes in apparent angular distance from the planet. On the 19^th Saturn will be 4 degrees east of the moon.

About 25 degrees to the east you’ll find the –2.3 planet Jupiter in the neighboring constellation Gemini the twins. On March 21^st you’ll find it 5 degrees east of the first quarter moon. This month, through a telescope or binoculars, you may see the planet with a "fifth" Galilean moon but it is actually a nearby +6.6 magnitude star. The four actual moons will change position from hour to hour and day to day.

The surprise of the month however is the appearance of a +7.5 magnitude comet C2002 C1 (Ikeya-Zhang) currently passing through the constellation Pisces low on the western horizon on its way toward perihelion on March 8^th. It was discovered by two amateur astronomers Kaoru Ikeya of Japan and Daqing Zhang of China ending the recent supremacy of the MIT Lincoln Laboratory automated LINEAR research program of Near Earth Objects. It is expected to reach +4.5 magnitude on it’s return trip from around the sun in the upcoming months. Look for it to reappear in the north next month in the constellation Cepheus when it will begin it’s trek out of the solar system. It will pass through the constellations Draco, Hercules, Serpens, Libra, and Scorpio before it disappears into the southern hemisphere by next September. It remains to be seen if it will reach the notoriety of the last spectacular "naked-eye"comet Hale-Bopp in 1995.