The merry month of May is named for the Roman fertility goddess Maia, the wife of the god of fire, Vulcan. May 1 is Beltane, a Celtic celebration of fertility and fire. Beltane is celebrated by lighting community bonfires and decorating houses with May boughs. Beltane is one of the cross-quarter days in the Celtic calendar-halfway between the spring equinox and the summer solstice.
May is a good month to see bright planets. Three bright planets are visible early in the evening. Venus is still visible blazing bright in the west. It can be seen soon after sunset which on May 1 is about 8:20 p.m. After finding Venus in the west look due south about 45 degrees above the horizon.
By 9 p.m. you should be able to see three bright “stars” in a long line slanting up from left to right. The bright yellow “star” farthest left in the line is Saturn. The middle star in the line is a real star, Regulus, and following Regulus the bright orange “star” farthest right in the line is Mars.
As the sky gets darker notice that Regulus is the dot at the bottom of a giant reversed question mark pattern in the constellation Leo the Lion. The head of the Lion is represented by the question mark or sickle and the body of the Lion is represented by a right triangle that follows the question mark and is above Saturn in the sky.
Regulus, which means little king, is one of the most rapidly rotating stars in the sky. Our sun rotates in 26 days but Regulus, a much more massive star than the sun, rotates in only 16 hours. Regulus rotates so fast that it is distorted to the shape of a football.
If the sky is now thoroughly dark look high in the north and see the big dipper with the bowl upside down. Would you believe that the water spilling out of the dipper accounts for spring showers?
The eta Aquarid meteors will peak in the early morning hours of May 6. These meteors occur when the Earth moves through debris left by Halley’s comet. Exactly one hundred years ago this month, May 19, 1910, the Earth passed through the tail of Halley’s comet.
Dire consequences were predicted for this event. This was because astronomers had discovered that comet tails showed the presence of the poisonous compound cyanogen as in cyanide. Despite the fact that astronomers assured the public that the tiny amount of comet gas would be harmless, con men sold comet pills and gas masks to worried members of the public.
The morning after the Earth moved through the comet’s tail the Mankato Free Press headlined “Earth Still Intact”.
By the end of May more planets will appear in the morning sky. Jupiter rises in the east at about 4:30 A.M. It will be so bright you can’t miss it. Very close to Jupiter in the sky but too faint to see without binoculars or telescope, are both Uranus and Neptune. Pluto has lost its planetary status but for old time sake I should mention that Pluto is in the May morning sky too.
For the online Free Press story, go to http://mankatofreepress.com/communityindex/x1164469821/May-Starline-bright-planets-interesting-history.
For more Free Press News, go to http://mankatofreepress.com
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