Idaho Skies Transcript for January 7th and 8th

PAUL
Welcome to Idaho Skies for January 7th and 8th. We’re your hosts, Paul…

RACHEL
…and Rachel.

PAUL
The moon was new on the 6th.

RACHEL
Stargazers will see it again if they look in the low southwest at around 7:00 PM on Tuesday the 8th. The moon will be nearly three days old, and therefore appear as a very thin crescent. The moon will be too thin to show any significant craters. Those that stargazers might see in their binoculars will appear nearly on edge. That means, very thin and elliptical.

PAUL
It will be easier to find the thin moon through binoculars. But to see it without optical aid is even neater. Remember when the moon is this thin, the majority of its far side is in daylight. That also means that an astronaut standing on the moon would see the Earth mostly full. The phase of the moon and Earth are opposite of each other to people standing on their surfaces. 

RACHEL
After you locate the moon, look for the star to the moon’s left. That star is Fomalhaut, the brightest star of the Southern Fish. Fomalhaut is only 440 million years old. That means its old enough to have planets and to have blown away any dust remaining from their formation. Since Fomalhaut is only 25 light years away, astronomers can use the Hubble Space Telescope to verify this prediction.

PAUL
Astronomers actually did found a planet, not just evidence of a planet. Even more surprising was the amount of dust still surrounding the star. The dust appears to be the result of comet collisions. Astronomers believe that it would take trillions of comets and thousands of collisions every day to create this amount of dust surrounding Fomalhaut. The USS Enterprise better raise its deflectors before entering this star system. 

RACHEL
That’s Idaho Skies for the 7th and 8th of January.

PAUL
Be sure to follow us on Twitter @IdahoSkies for this week’s event reminders and sky maps.

For Idaho Skies this is Paul…

RACHEL
…and Rachel.

PAUL
Dark skies and bright stars.