Here is a familiar figure – to stargazers – and to Texans like me. Just yesterday, my little neighbor – age 5 – told me she saw a scorpion. To those of us who watch the skies, the chance to see a celestial Scorpion is present mostly in the summer months. Here it is – Scorpius the Scorpion – only visible at nightfall and very early evening now that summer is fading away.
The Scorpion is one of the few constellations that looks like the creature for which it was named. It’s that curved “tail” of stars looping down toward the southern horizon that does the trick. The star Antares is sometimes called the Heart of the Scorpion. It is a fiery red star, one of the brightest stars in the sky, with a reputation for twinkling fiercely. The fierce twinkling no doubt stems from the fact that, to us in the northern hemisphere, Antares arcs across the southern sky and is often seen low in the sky. And when we look low in the sky, we’re looking through a thicker-than-usual mass of Earth’s atmosphere. The atmosphere, of course, is what causes stars to twinkle.
Tonight’s waxing crescent moon, as seen from North America, is over 40 percent illuminated by sunshine. In the world’s eastern hemisphere – Europe, Africa, Asia, Indonesia, Australia and New Zealand – the waxing crescent exhibits a little thinner phase and lies somewhat farther west of Antares. But no matter where you live, the moon – as always – is moving eastward in front of the background stars, now heading for the constellation Scorpius’ brightest star: Antares, the Heart of the Scorpion.
Antares: Heart of the Scorpion
As seen from North America at evening tomorrow – on Sunday, September 4 – the moon will have moved noticeably to the east (left) of the star Antares. However, in the world’s eastern hemisphere on Sunday evening, you’ll see these two luminaries cozying up quite close together. Incidentally, the first quarter moon will come tomorrow, at 17:39 Universal Time.
Watch for the waxing moon near the star Antares, the Scorpion’s Heart, on the evenings of September 3 and 4
