Wednesday, March 1, 2017 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
11
Stars over Sisters
By Rylee Funk & Taylor Frey
Correspondents
As we move into the
month of March there are
new objects to focus on in
the night sky.
Out of the many constel-
lations that can be seen, the
one to look out for is Pyxis,
the constellation referred to
as the Mariner’s Compass. It
is surrounded by the constel-
lations Puppis, Hydra, Vela,
and Antlia, and is best seen
in the evening at around nine
o’clock in the southern sky.
Pyxis is made up of three
main stars; Alpha Pyxidis,
Beta Pyxidis, and Gamma
Pyxidis. The Alpha star is a
large star, being ten times the
mass and six times the radius
of the Sun. It is predicted that
Alpha Pyxidis will explode
in a supernova because of
it’s size. Beta Pyxidis is a
yellow-white giant which
is an estimated twenty-five
times larger than the sun. It
is the beta star not because
of it’s size, but because from
Earth it appears to be dim-
mer than Alpha Pyxidis.
Finally, Gamma Pyxidis
is a giant yellow-orange star
that is similar to the Sun, but
is three times larger. All three
of these main stars have
orbiting planets which have
been discovered through
the process of Doppler
Spectrocity which uses the
wavelengths of light to prove
that there is an object orbit-
ing the star. Pyxis is said to
be a part of the former con-
stellation known as Argo
Navis, which was eventu-
ally split into three main
constellations: Carina, Vela,
and Puppis. Argo Navis was
a ship in Greek Mythology,
and each of the three split
constellations represents a
part of the ship. Pyxis is a
subordinate detachment of
Argo Navis because it is in
very close proximity to the
actual divisions of the con-
stellation, but is not consid-
ered an actual division itself.
Pyxis doesn’t contain any
Messier objects but it has
several deepsky objects, one
being NGC 2818, a plan-
etary nebula. What is spe-
cial about NGC 2818 is that
it is located within an open
cluster called NGC 2818A.
There are only a handful of
nebulae that exist within a
cluster. This is because the
open cluster disperses faster
PHOTO COURTESY NASA, ESA, AND THE HUBBLE HERITAGE TEAM (STSCI/AURA)
NGC 2818 is a beautiful planetary nebula in t2e constellation of Pyxis, located at a distance of 10,400 lig2t-
years.
than its stars can age to the
Another object to look with binoculars, but can also
point of forming a plane- for this month is 41P/Tuttle- be visible to the naked eye.
tary nebula. NGC 2818 was Giacobini-Kresák, a comet
This month, Venus will
formed by a sun-like star first discovered in 1858 by appear in the western skies
that ran out of fuel to sus- Horace Parnell Tuttle, redis- along with Mars. Jupiter will
tain itself. Therefore, over covered in 1907 by Michel be visible in the South East.
the next tens of thousands Giacobini, and in 1951 by The full moon will appear
of years the core will be left L’ubor Kresák. The comet on March 11, and will start
as a white dwarf, which will will be closest to the Earth waning until March 27,
remain there for millions in late March, being only when the new moon begins.
of years. Our own star will 13.67 million miles away, Finally, mark your calen-
eventually go through this the closest this comet has dars for March 20, when the
process in the very distant been to the Earth in the last spring equinox starts off the
future.
century. It can be seen best new season.