Winter 2012
Sky Report: Middle Schools
by Dr. Bob Doyle, Portable Planetarium Teacher

Resources for Primary School Teachers

• Middle School Sky Basics
  
  
• Winter 2012 Skies for Middle Grades

Winter 2012 Middle School Sky Basics

On a clear night, you can see a dark sky, hundreds of near by stars, possibly our moon and perhaps a planet or two (seen as bright steadily shining points). The night sky appears dark due to emptiness of space and the expansion of the universe. The night stars are distant suns whose light takes many years to travel to the Earth. These stars are likely still there as stars shine for million or billions of years. The moon is our Earth’s companion as we travel each year about the sun. The moon’s visible shapes (phases) are due to the moon being lit by the sun as it orbits the Earth. The moon can be seen growing in lighted width in the evening sky for about a dozen days. The moon then appears full for an evening or two and then begins to shrink, spending just as much time shrinking in the morning sky as it did growing in the evening sky. Even the nearer planets are so far away compared to their distances that they appear as steady points in the sky. In order of brightness as seen from Earth, Venus is by far the brightest planet, with Jupiter in 2^nd place.

Winter 2012 Sky Sights for Middle School Students

The brightest evening star on winter evenings is Sirius, the night's brightest star that sparkles in all the colors of the rainbow. To be sure of identifying Sirius (sounds like serious), look for three stars in a row that makes up Orion's belt. In the early winter evenings, these stars point left and down to Sirius. Later in the winter, the belt stars point left to Sirius. Sirius represents the throat of the Big Dog, Orion's hunting companion. Orion's belt also points rightward to two wonderful sights in Taurus, the Bull. To left of the belt line is a bright orange star named Aldebaran, marking the eye of Taurus. Aldebaran is on the edge of a star cluster called the Hyades ('rainy ones') Aldebaran is not part of the cluster as it lies only half as far away as the cluster. Further along the direction of the belt is the Pleiades or Seven Sisters star cluster. This concentration of stars resembles a tiny dipper. Ordinarily, sharp eyed observers can count 6 stars in the Pleiades, but many more cluster stars are visible through binoculars.

The brilliant planet Venus dominates the western dusk in Winter 2012, outshining all night stars. In January & February, you will see the bright planet Jupiter to the left of Venus. As winter passes, the two planets draw together, and appear closest in mid March, when Jupiter drops below Venus. In March, the planet Mars will be seen low in the eastern evening sky.

On Sundays, there are free public sky shows in the Compton Science Center in room 224, starting at 4 p.m. The February presentation is "Bears and their Skies" and the March presentation is "Hooved Animals of Northern Lands". Call (301) 687-7799 to request a sky show schedule and small campus map.

For additional information, contact:

Dr. Robert Doyle, Planetarium Director
Frostburg State University
Department of Physics and Engineering
101 Braddock Road
Frostburg, MD 21532-1099
(301) 687-4270
rdoyle@frostburg.edu