STAR GAZER
THE INTERNATIONAL EDITION
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Horkheimer: Greetings, greetings fellow star gazers. If you want
to give your sweetheart something very special and out of this
world this Valentine's Day we have two bright red objects in the
cosmos gift wrapped and ready to present absolutely free.
O.K., we've got our skies set up for 8 to 9 p.m. this Valentine's Day night, Sunday February 14th facing east where half way up the sky you'll see a very bright yellow gold light which many people say has a reddish rouge tint to it. It has been known throughout history as the red planet and it is, of course, Mars. At the end of January Mars was at its closest to Earth and at its brightest for all of 2010 and 2011. And although it is now slowly moving away from us each night it is nevertheless extremely bright and quite easy to find. So Mars is your first cosmic red gift for your Valentine.
For your second gift simply turn to your right and look due south and you will see another very bright even redder object shining high above the horizon. It is in fact the brightest red star we can see with the naked eye. And just coincidentally it reaches its highest point above the horizon every Valentine's Day night between the hours of 8 and 9 p.m. It is one of Orion the Hunter's shoulder stars. And its name is Betelgeuse which most people pronounce "beetle juice". So now you have red cosmic gift #2 for your Valentine.
And although Betelgeuse and Mars will look about the same in brightness there their similarity ends. In fact they are about as different as you can get. And you can really impress your Valentine when you tell her or him what they're all about. Mars is not very big cosmically speaking, only half the size of our 8,000 mile wide Earth, 4,000 miles wide. But Betelgeuse is about as big a red Valentine as you'll ever find. In fact if we compare Betelgeuse with Mars and our Sun you'll understand just how big.
Indeed Mars is absolutely dinky compared to our Sun. In fact we could fit over 8.7 million Mars inside it. Betelgeuse however is so huge we could fit over 160 million of our Suns inside it! And that's when Betelgeuse is at its smallest size, because Betelgeuse changes its size regularly like a gigantic slowly pulsating heart. It beats however only once every six years. When Betelgeuse contracts to its smallest size, it is about 500 times the width of our Sun. But when it expands to its largest size it is almost 900 times as wide. Or if you think of it this way, if we could place Betelgeuse where our Sun is when Betelgeuse is at its smallest it would stretch out past the orbits of Mercury, Venus, Earth, all the way to Mars. But when it's at its largest it would reach all the way to Jupiter, wow!
So there you have it, in the south the red
star Betelgeuse at its highest above the horizon and in the east
the red gold planet Mars half way up the heavens. And perhaps
that gold color will inspire you to give your Valentine a bit
of the same. Is this a romantic cosmos or what? Happy Valentine's
Day night and keep looking up!
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Horkheimer: This year give your Valentine two bright red cosmic objects. Between 8 and 9 p.m. This Valentine's Day night face east and you'll see a bright reddish gold light which is the red planet Mars and your Valentine's gift #1. Then face south and you'll see an even brighter and redder object, which is the brightest red star we can see. And which just coincidentally reaches its highest point every Valentine's night between the hours of 8 and 9 p.m. It is Orion's red shoulder star Betelgeuse and it is Valentine gift number two. But apart from their redness the similarity ends because Mars is a 4000 mile wide planet while Betelgeuse is so huge we could fit over 8 1/2 million Mars inside it. Wow! Impress your mate with a cosmic date. Keep looking up!
Please give us your comments. (Click
Here)
* This week's Sky At A Glance and
Planet Roundup from Sky & Telescope.Starry Night Deluxe was used to produce this episode
of Star Gazer
![[SmilinJack]](jack1sm.jpg)
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