The Moon rises early in the morning. This morning it will be in line with 3 of the brightest stars in the winter Milky Way; the Gemini twin stars of Castor and Pollux and Procyon, the brightest star in the ‘little dog’ Canis Minor.
Pollux magnitude +1.2 brightest star in constellation of Gemini 17th brightest star in sky K0 type orange giant star younger but more evolved than Sun 1.7 solar masses 8.8 solar diameters 32 times brighter than Sun may have an 2 Jupiter mass planet 33.7 lightyears from Earth (198,105,444,000,000 miles away) Castor magnitude +1.9 2nd brightest star in constellation of Gemini 44th brightest star in sky sextuplet star system (made up of 3 very close pairs) biggest star has 2.2 solar masses, 2.3 solar diameters biggest star is 30 times brighter than the Sun 51.6 lightyears from Earth (303,337,308,000,000 miles away) Procyon magnitude +0.3 Brightest star in constellation of Canis Minor 7th brightest star in the sky spectral type of F5 binary star system (white dwarf secondary of 0.6 solar masses) biggest star has 2.1 solar masses, 1.4 solar diameters biggest star is 7.7 times brighter than the Sun 11.4 lightyears from Earth (67,000,000,000,000 miles away)
Tomorrow – Day 25 – Among a swarm of bees …
The Transient Sky - Comets, Asteroids, Meteors 