The Hindu : National : Sight Uranus for three days from today

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Monday, Apr 17, 2006

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National

Sight Uranus for three days from today

Special Correspondent

It will have a close encounter with Venus

NEW DELHI: A treat awaits sky watchers early next week. Uranus, the seventh planet in the solar system, will be visible to the naked eye for three days, from April 17 to 19. Normally, only five planets are visible to the naked eye: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn.

The rare event is taking place as Venus and Uranus will have a close encounter in the dawn sky. One just has to look east before sunrise. As a guidepost, one will have to first locate Venus, the brightest planet in the eastern sky. If the sky is very dark, one would be able to see Uranus as a faint spot besides Venus. If the sky is not too dark, one simply has to scan Venus with a pair of binoculars or a small telescope and Uranus will be right beside it.

According to Arvind C. Ranade, in-charge of astronomy-related activities at the Department of Science and Technology's `Vigyan Prasar,' on April 17, the Venus-Uranus pair will be separated by about one degree, the width of a finger held at arm's length. On April 18, they will be even closer together, just 0.3 degrees apart. On April 19, the distance between them will increase again to one degree.

It would be a wonderful sight if viewed through a small telescope, he said. One would see a diamond-bright Venus in tiny half-moon phase and Uranus as a little blue-green disk.

Uranus was earlier called George after the English astronomer, William Herschel discovered it in 1781 during a telescopic survey of the zodiac and he named it Georgium Sidus (the Georgian Planet) in honour of his patron, King George III. Later, it was renamed Uranus, after the Greek god of the sky.

Uranus is not as bright as the other planets, but it is there, glowing like an aqua-blue star with a magnitude of 6 (a logarithmic brightness scale): the faintest object that human eye can see. It measures four times wider than Earth, has more than 30 moons and dozens of thin rings. Uranus goes around the sun every 84 years, always spinning on its side as if something knocked it over.

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