Mars and Jupiter

        Last week I was able to find the two constellations that I wanted to in the night sky. However, my survey of the night sky to find constellations is not looking promising for this week. Unfortunately the weather is not cooperating. It is supposed to rain and be cloudy all week. This will make it very difficult to locate constellations. Therefore, this week I will use Stellarium to explore two of the planets in our solar system. Mars is the first planet that is visible above the horizon at night at this time of year.

Figure obtained from Stellarium

        This figure shows Mars and one can even see some of the surface features. One can also see that Mars has two moons that orbit it, these are Phobos and Deimos.  They appear as circular points however that are actually potato shape because they do not have enough self-gravity to make them spherical. Phobos is more cratered and has a shorter period to orbit mars it is also the largest out of the two moons.  The next planet is Jupiter, this is the close Jovian planet to the sun and it has a large number of moons but it has four large moons called the Galileo Moons.

Figure Obtained from Stellarium 

        This is a figure of Jupiter it is one of the Gas giants. Jupiter and the other Jovian planets are much larger than the terrestrial planets and they also have large moons. Here one can see Jupiter but also its four large moons. These are Callistro, Europa, Io and Ganymede. Many scientists are interested in Europa because it is thought to have liquid oceans under its surface of ice. There are plans to use radar to determine the thickness of the ice. There have also been thought that this moon may be a place that could harbour life.  I have found these two planets and discussed some of the properties of them and their moons. Hopefully next week it is possible to see the stars and I can go star gazing.