What’s up? The night sky January – March 2024
January evenings will be dominated by the gas giant planets Jupiter and Saturn in the western sky. On 14 January both are visible with Saturn close by the crescent Moon and the star Fomalhaut just above it.
A simulated image of the night sky showing the Moon, Saturn and Jupiter as bright spots, with other fainter stars against a dark background.
View of Jupiter, Saturn, Fomalhaut and the Moon in the evening sky, 14 January. (Image produced using Stellarium, www.stellarium.org )
Fomalhaut is the brightest star in the constellation Piscis Austrinus, the Southern Fish. About 25 light years from us, Fomalhaut is a young star, likely only 100-300 million years old. It was the first star beyond our Solar System to have an exoplanet candidate – a planet that orbits a star other than our Sun – seen in visible light. When later observed by a variety of telescopes, it was instead revealed to be a series of dust cloud rings orbiting Fomalhaut, rather than an exoplanet. A recent image by the James Webb Space Telescope shows these rings; the bright star in the image has been covered to help see the rings better.
Diagram with heading: James Webb Space Telescopes, Fomalhaut. Labels point to different bright orange concentric oval shaped rings describing them as Inner disc, inner gap, intermediate belt, outer gap, outer ring, halo and great dust cloud.
The dust rings around Fomalhaut imaged by the James Webb Space Telescope. IMAGE: NASA, ESA, CSA IMAGE PROCESSING: András Gáspár (University of Arizona), Alyssa Pagan (STScI) SCIENCE: András Gáspár (University of Arizona)
The Sun will be at its closest point to Earth on 3 January 2024. This is because our orbit around the Sun is slightly oval shaped, or elliptical. The point of closest approach is called perihelion (‘peri’ means ‘around’ and ‘helios’ means sun in Greek) while the point furthest away is called aphelion (‘ap’ being ‘away’ or ‘from’). The difference in distance is only about 3%, so not enough to have a major impact on weather – our seasonal temperature variations are due to the tilt in Earth’s axis instead.
Early risers on 8 February will be greeted by the planets Venus, Mars and Mercury aligned in the pre-dawn eastern sky with the crescent Moon above and to the right of bright ‘morning star’ Venus.
A simulated image of the pre-dawn glowing orange and dark blue sky showing the Moon, Venus, Mars and Mercury as bright spots.
View of Venus, Mars, mercury and the Moon in the pre-dawn sky, 8 February.(Image produced using Stellarium, www.stellarium.org)
Rob Hollow, Education and Outreach Manager, CSIRO