Feb 27 - Mercury's Vertical Leap

February 27 Mercury's Vertical Leap by:

Please help EarthSky keep going ... Please help EarthSky continue to provide science news and information on the night sky. Can you help with a small donation? We need you. Click to donate and learn more.  View larger. | At its farthest from the sun in our evening sky in late February 2019, Mercury will appear as a "star" above the sunset point. Notice Mars, too! Chart via Guy Ottewell. Now is the time to see Mercury For Northern Hemisphere skywatchers, it's the best evening apparition of Mercury in 2019. Astronomer Guy Ottewell explains why now is the best time to look. Read more. When is the next leap year? If there were no leap years, eventually February would be a summer month for the Northern Hemisphere. Read more. Want cleaner roadside air? Plant hedges To improve air quality near urban roads, scientists from the Global Centre for Clean Air Research in the U.K. recommend planting hedges to trap air pollutants. Read more. What we’re reading … Dark forces messing with the cosmos? The universe seems to be expanding far more rapidly than it should. Astrophysicists are struggling to account for the discrepancy. The New York Times' Dennis Overbye explains their new ideas, which, if borne out, could mean a rewrite on our understanding of the cosmos. Read more. Image via the New York Times.

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Before sunup … Spectacular moon and 3 planets In the next 2 mornings, the moon will be waning and sandwiched between Jupiter and Saturn. By this weekend, a very thin crescent will be passing Venus. Watch for them all before sunup!

Touchdown marks on asteroid Ryugu Japan's Hayabusa2 spacecraft captured this image last week during its ascent after touchdown on asteroid Ryugu. You can see the shadow of Hayabusa2 and a region of the surface of the asteroid apparently discolored by the touchdown. Image via JAXA (@haya2e_jaxa on Twitter) Submit your photo to EarthSky here! Did a friend forward EarthSkyNews to you? Click here to get your own subscription!

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