Transcript for January 25th to 31st

PAUL
Welcome to Idaho Skies for the last week of January. We’re your hosts, Paul...

RACHEL
...and Rachel.

PAUL
This is star cluster week.

RACHEL
So get your binoculars ready.

PAUL
The moon forms a triangle with the Hyades and Pleiades star clusters on the night of the 28th.

RACHEL
Bright star clusters are perfect objects for your binoculars or spotting scope.

PAUL
While the fainter ones will appear as fuzzy spots...

RACHEL
...the brighter ones can appear as a scattering of diamond dust.

PAUL
Star clusters formed from one giant cloud of dust and gas.

RACHEL
A disturbance, perhaps a supernova shockwave creates a wave of compression that lets gravity’s attraction overcome the random motions of the molecules inside the cloud.

PAUL
When this happens, the cloud shrinks and fragments into many pieces.

RACHEL
Each fragment shrinks into a spinning pancake of dust and gas.

PAUL
As it gets smaller, the cloud of gas grows ever hotter.

RACHEL
At some point, the center of the cloud gets hot enough to start fusing hydrogen into helium.

PAUL
The remaining dust and gas fragments into smaller pieces that eventually collapse into planetesimals, or the building blocks of planets.

RACHEL
Planetesimals collide with each other as they orbit the new born sun.

PAUL
Many of them will stick together to build larger structures that will eventually become planets.

RACHEL
Our solar system most likely formed in such a way 4.5 billion years ago.

PAUL
Unfortunately, the sun’s siblings drifted away long ago.

RACHEL
The moon drifts past the edge of the Hyades star cluster on the 29th.

PAUL
The Hyades appears as a large triangle of stars.

RACHEL
Look for the orange star at the end of the triangle nearest the moon.

PAUL
The star is not actually a member of the Hyades star cluster.

RACHEL
It’s much closer to our solar system than the Hyades.

PAUL
And it just happens to lie in a line between our solar system and the Hyades star cluster.

RACHEL
The star’s name is Aldebaran and it represents the glowing red eye of Taurus the Bull.

PAUL
Aldebaran means the follower in Arabic.

RACHEL
Why the follower?

PAUL
Probably because the star follows the Pleiades star cluster.

RACHEL
That’s Idaho Skies for the last week of January. Join us next month for the space and astronomy events for Idaho.

PAUL
Be sure to follow us on Twitter at Idaho Skies for this week’s event reminders and sky maps.

For Idaho Skies this is Paul...

RACHEL
...and Rachel.

PAUL
Dark skies and bright stars.