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Wednesday, September 23, 2020 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon
The Nugget Newspaper Crossword
By Jacqueline E. Mathews, Tribune News Service
PHOTO COURTESY NASA
M15 is one of the oldest star cluster in the Milky Way galaxy, located
33,600 light-years away in the constellation of Pegasus.
Stars over Sisters
By Paola Mendoza
Columnist
Generally speaking, con-
stellations in evening autumn
skies tend to be dimmer than
those on display during the
winter, spring, and summer
seasons. This rule of thumb
does not apply, however, to
our featured constellation for
October.
In October Pegasus, the
Flying Horse, is already
well up in the eastern sky by
about 8 p.m. local time. To
find it look for a giant square
marked by Scheat, Markab,
Algenib and Alpheratz,
stars of approximately equal
brightness.
Alpheratz was originally
a member of Pegasus but
became the brightest star
in Andromeda when mod-
ern constellation boundar-
ies were fixed in 1930. Few
other stellar patterns have
such a recognizable shape.
It is the seventh-largest con-
stellation, occupying an area
of 1,121 square degrees on
the celestial sphere.
Pegasus9 brightest star
is Enif, an orange supergi-
ant body estimated to have a
mass 12 times greater and a
size 370 times larger than our
sun. It is thought to be about
20 million years old and may,
if it has enough mass, end its
life in a supernova explosion
in the next few million years.
While Pegasus contains
several deep sky objects,
almost all of them are dim,
far off galaxies. The lone
exception is M15, one of the
finest globular star clusters in
the sky. This ancient collec-
tion of stars is one of the old-
est and densest in our galaxy,
being an estimated 12 billion
years old. Astronomers sus-
pect there may be a black
hole at its center. M15 has a
diameter of 175 light-years
and is 33,600 light-years
away.
Pegasus plays a key role
in one of the best-known
legends of Greek mythol-
ogy. As the story goes, the
hero Perseus rescues prin-
cess Andromeda, daughter
of King Cepheus and Queen
Cassiopeia, from Cetus, the
dreaded sea monster. To
achieve this, however, Per-
seus first had to slay Medusa
for her head, which had the
power to turn anyone to
stone who gazed upon it.
The deed done, Perseus
had to hurry back to the
Aethiopian coast, where
Andromeda was chained to a
rock, with his newly acquired
weapon. Perseus arrived just
in time on the back of Pega-
sus to show Medusa9s head
to Cetus, turning him to
stone.
All of these characters in
the story are constellations
located in approximately the
same part of the sky 4 even
the head of Medusa is there!
The planet Mars, now
brightening in the constel-
lation of Pisces, will reach
opposition on October 13.
Opposition is an alignment
of the earth, sun, and a supe-
rior planet, with the earth
being in the middle. This is
the best time to view a planet
because it is visible all night,
reaching the meridian at mid-
night local standard time.
Actually, Mars will be
closest to the earth on Octo-
ber 6, when the two planets
will be separated by just 38.6
million miles. From this dis-
tance the apparent size of the
planet9s disk will be 22.6 arc-
seconds. This may be close
enough for observers with
medium-sized telescopes
to see the polar cap and/or
glimpse some dark surface
markings. Image quality will
depend in large part on the
stability of the atmosphere.
The time between Mars
oppositions is 26 months,
far longer than for any other
planet in the solar system.
After this month9s opposi-
tion, the next favorable align-
ment won9t come around
until September 2035. So,
don9t miss this opportunity!
The moon is featured
prominently this month. On
October 1, the full Harvest
Moon is on display. It9s a
harvest moon because it
occurs closest to the autum-
nal equinox, which fell on
September 22 this year. Then
on October 31, another full
moon rolls around. When
two full moons pop up in the
same month, the second is
said to be a blue moon.
But it gets better. Because
the second full moon this
month is on October 31, it
becomes a rare Halloween
blue moon. Spooky!
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