The Sky This Week for June 9 to June 12
Thursday, June 9
• The bright planets Mars and Saturn join with the 1st-magnitude star Antares to create a dramatic triangle in the southern sky these June evenings. A red supergiant star whose color mimics that of Mars, Antares is the luminary of the constellation Scorpius the Scorpion. Aim your binoculars a degree west (to the right) of the star and you’ll find the globular cluster M4. This object contains more than 100,000 stars and looks like a faint ball of cotton. A telescope shows dozens of stars scattered across the cluster’s face. To learn more about this constellation’s best telescopic objects, see “Target gems of Scorpius” in the June issue of Astronomy.
Friday, June 10
• Look high in the northwest after darkness falls this month, and you will see the familiar shape of the Big Dipper. The Dipper is the most conspicuous asterism — a recognizable pattern of stars that doesn’t embody a complete constellation shape — in the entire sky. It forms the body and tail of Ursa Major the Great Bear. Use the Pointers, the two stars at the end of the Dipper’s bowl, to find Polaris, which lies due north for everyone north of the equator. Polaris marks the end of the Little Dipper’s handle. On June evenings, the relatively faint stars of this dipper arc directly above Polaris.
Saturday, June 11
• A half-lit Moon hangs about 4° to Jupiter’s left in this evening’s sky. The pair becomes visible within a half-hour after sunset (though the Moon shows up in the daytime sky during the afternoon) and remains on view until 1 a.m. local daylight time. The Moon officially hits First Quarter phase at 4:10 a.m. EDT tomorrow morning.
Sunday, June 12
• For people who live near 35° north latitude, today marks the earliest sunrise of the year. Although the Northern Hemisphere’s longest day doesn’t occur until Earth’s summer solstice on June 20, earliest sunrise happens several days before and latest sunset several days after. The specific dates depend on your latitude, however. In general, earliest sunrise occurs closer to the solstice the farther north you live.
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