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Aphrodite for the ancient Greeks bore the name Venus in the ancient Roman world, and the planet of love and beauty that bears this goddess’s name is the most brilliant object in the sky, after Sun and Moon.
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The Renaissance artist Sandro Botticelli’s 15th century painting Primavera is uniquely related to this week’s morning sky scene, especially Thursday, February 1st, when the gibbous Moon wanes past the star Spica an hour before sunrise.
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There are three things that draw my attention to this week’s Full Moon, which occurs on Thursday, January 25 around noon.
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With last week’s New Moon as the first of the New Year, it’s time to look at what everybody else is doing. This week my eye is on Venus.
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Solstice, which means “the standing still of the Sun,” is like the pause in human breathing, between inbreath and outbreath, outbreath to inbreath.
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The Geminid Meteor Shower was first observed in 1862, by an astronomer in England. At the time, the American Civil War was underway, so we could say that the shower was born during wartime.
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At this time of year the asterism of the Winter Hexagon rises up in the East after sunset, six bright stars that create the pattern of a six-pointed star, led by Sirius, the brightest star in our sky.
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Legend holds that Polish astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus was observing Mars when he was struck with the inspiration that the Earth was orbiting the sun.
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In addition to Venus and the Moon at dawn on Thursday, there’s meteor shower activity all week, radiating from the constellation Taurus.