January 2018 is set to be an incredible month for the skies. Warming up with the New Year’s Supermoon and the spectacular Quadrantids, this month will end with a blue supermoon in total eclipse for many viewers.
NASA has posted a video explaining everything you need to know to make sure you catch the rest of January’s astronomical feast. Jane Houston Jones, an astronomer from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, explains how to watch the Quadrantids, a close pairing of Jupiter and Mars.
The Quadrantid meteor shower will peak tonight for just a few short hours. The full event lasts for more than two weeks, but astronomers predict it will have a short, sharp spurt of activity the night of January 3/4.
The bright flurry of shooting stars—best observed from the Northern Hemisphere—should be viewed from somewhere dark. Unfortunately for stargazers this year, the Quadrantids will be obscured by a the very bright, nearly-full waning
If you lie down somewhere free from artificial light, and block out your view of the moon with an object like a hill, you could see 20 to 30 shooting stars per hour, according to the International Meteor Organisation. You can track the trail of the moving stars back to their host constellation using a shoestring, Houston Jones explains.
If you don’t get the chance to see it in person, Meteorshowers.org offers a digital reconstruction of future meteor shower activity.
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January 03, 2018
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