Saturn’s rings were also widest in 2017 from our perspective, and in 2023, narrow from 10 to 6 degrees wide and head towards edge-on once again in 2025. The moons move back towards edge-on in 2026, when a season of mutual transits and eclipses resume. Looking father afield in the solar system, 2023 is a ‘miss’ year for Jupiter’s outermost moon Callisto, the only major Galilean moon that can pass above or below Jove from our perspective. Expect lots of sunspots, solar flares and prominences, and aurora.Ģ023 kicks off with all five naked eye planets visible at dusk in one visual sweep, a spectacle broken up once Mercury leaves the evening scene on January 5 th. This is solar cycle Number 25 since we’ve started keeping records in 1755. Still, we can expect our host star to put on a good show in 2023 as we head towards the peak of the 11-year solar cycle in 2025. We haven’t seen such a spectacle since Kepler’s supernova in 1604, though we did see one in our nearby satellite galaxy the Large Magellanic Cloud in 1987. Even less certain are when we can expect the next naked eye nova (we get about a dozen per century) or when the next galactic supernovae will grace our skies. Eclipses, Moon phases, and conjunctions are always sure to happen in a clockwork Universe… what’s less known are how intense the solar cycle or a given meteor shower will be, or when the next great ‘Comet of the Century’ will turn up. A possible outburst from the Andromedid meteors in early December Comet 96P/Machholz, imaged by NASA’s STEREO spacecraft.Īs with any year, there’s what is known… and unknown.
0 kommentar(er)
