{"id":3022,"date":"2024-03-05T05:42:17","date_gmt":"2024-03-05T05:42:17","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.griffithmedia.org\/skyreport\/?p=3022"},"modified":"2024-03-05T05:42:17","modified_gmt":"2024-03-05T05:42:17","slug":"griffith-observatory-sky-report-through-march-2024","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.griffithmedia.org\/skyreport\/2024\/03\/05\/griffith-observatory-sky-report-through-march-2024\/","title":{"rendered":"Griffith Observatory Sky Report through March, 2024"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"Click<\/strong><\/a>LISTEN to this week\u2019s Sky Report<\/p>\nhttps:\/\/www.griffithmedia.org\/skyreport\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/MAR_2024_Sky_Report.mp3<\/a><\/audio>\n

This is the Griffith Observatory Sky Report for the period between March 1 and March 31, 2024. Here are the events happening in the sky of southern California.<\/p>\n

Mercury<\/strong> starts March close to the sun and is unobservable. On the 6th<\/sup>, the sun sets at 5:54 p.m., PST, and Mercury sets in the west at 6:26 p.m., PST, 32 minutes later. The planet is 98-percent illuminated and 5.1 arcseconds wide. On the 24th<\/sup>, the sun sets at 7:08 p.m., PDT, and Mercury sets at 8:39 p.m., PDT, one hour 31 minutes later, the maximum time between the two events for March. The planet is at magnitude -1.6, 47-percent illuminated, and 7.3 arcseconds wide. On the 31st<\/sup>, the sun sets at 7:14 p.m., PDT, and Mercury sets at 8:30 p.m., PDT, one hour 16 minutes later. The planet is at magnitude +1.0, 20-percent illuminated, and 9.0 arcseconds wide. Do not observe any planet when it comes close to the sun, for the danger to the eyes is great.<\/p>\n

Venus<\/strong> rises in the east-southeast at 5:17 a.m., PST, on the 1st<\/sup>, and the sun rises at 6:21 a.m., PST, one hour four minutes later. The planet is 91-percent illuminated and 11 arcseconds wide. On the 31st<\/sup>, Venus rises at 6:04 a.m., PDT, and the sun rises at 6:41 a.m., PDT, 37 minutes later. The planet is 96-percent illuminated and 10 arcseconds wide.<\/p>\n

Mars<\/strong> moves from Capricornus the Sea Goat to Aquarius the Water Bearer on the 19th<\/sup>. On the 1st<\/sup>, Mars rises in the east-southeast at 5:06 a.m., PST, one hour 15 minutes before the sun rises. On the 31st<\/sup>, Mars rises at 5:17 a.m., PDT, one hour 24 minutes before the sun rises. Mars is 96-percent illuminated and 4.4 arcseconds wide, which is too small for anything on its disk to be seen.<\/p>\n

Jupiter<\/strong> is in Aries the Ram. On the 1st<\/sup>, Jupiter sets in the west-northwest at 10:32 p.m., PST. On the 31st<\/sup> the planet sets at 10:02 p.m., PDT. The planet is 34 arcseconds wide. A magnification 50x will show the Red Spot, and the four bright Galilean moons can be seen moving back and forth, across and behind Jupiter.<\/p>\n

Saturn<\/strong> is in Aquarius the Water Bearer. The planet starts March close to the sun and is unobservable.\u00a0 On the 16th<\/sup>, Saturn rises in the east at 6:31 a.m., PDT, and the sun rises at 7:01 a.m., PDT, 30 minutes later. On the 31st<\/sup>, Saturn rises at 5:37 a.m., PDT, one hour and four minutes before sunrise. The planet is 16 arcseconds wide. The rings and Saturn\u2019s largest moon, Titan, may be seen with a magnification of 50x.<\/p>\n

Uranus<\/strong> is in the constellation Aries the Ram. On the 1st<\/sup>, Uranus sets in the west-northwest at 11:12 p.m., PST. On the 31st<\/sup>, the planet sets at 10:20 p.m., PDT. On the 15th<\/sup>, Uranus is at Right Ascension 3h<\/sup> 10m<\/sup> 44s<\/sup> with a declination of +17\u00b0 29\u02b9 9\u02ba. The disk of Uranus is 3.5 arcseconds wide, and so a magnification of 150x is needed.<\/p>\n

Neptune<\/strong> is in the constellation Pisces the Fishes. On the 1st<\/sup>, Neptune sets in the west at 6:58 p.m., PST, one hour eight minutes after sunset. On the 9th<\/sup>, the sun sets at 5:57 p.m., PST, and Neptune sets at 6:28 p.m., PST, 31 minutes later, and is too close to the sun through the rest of March.<\/p>\n

The last quarter moon occurs on the 3rd<\/sup>, new moon on the 10th<\/sup>, first quarter on the 16th<\/sup>, and full moon on the 25th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n

SPECIAL EVENTS<\/strong><\/p>\n

Daylight Saving Time<\/strong> begins on Sunday, March 10th<\/sup>, at 2:00 a.m. All clocks must be set forward one hour, according to the saying, \u201cSpring forward, fall back.\u201d<\/p>\n

Spring begins <\/strong>in the earth\u2019s northern hemisphere (and autumn in the southern hemisphere) at 8:06 p.m., PDT, on March 19. At this precise moment, when the sun reaches the point where the ecliptic crosses the celestial equator, it moves from south to north. The point where and the time when the sun crosses the celestial equator to the north is the vernal equinox. Spring ends with the summer solstice on June 20.<\/p>\n

A penumbral lunar eclipse<\/strong> occurs on the 25th<\/sup>. The eclipse begins at 9:53 p.m., PDT, and ends at 2:31 a.m., PDT, with mid-eclipse at 12:13 a.m., PDT. During a penumbral lunar eclipse, the moon travels through the outer, fainter portion of earth\u2019s shadow and does not significantly dim as it would during an umbral eclipse, when the moon passes through the darker, umbral part of earth\u2019s shadow.<\/p>\n

Follow All Space Considered and Griffith Observatory on Facebook<\/a>, Instagram<\/a>, YouTube<\/a>, and Twitter<\/a> for updates on astronomy and space-related events.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

LISTEN to this week\u2019s Sky Report https:\/\/www.griffithmedia.org\/skyreport\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/03\/MAR_2024_Sky_Report.mp3 This is the Griffith Observatory Sky Report for the period between March 1 and March 31, 2024. Here are the events happening in the sky of southern California. Mercury starts March close to … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":7,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3022","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-skyreport"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.griffithmedia.org\/skyreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3022","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.griffithmedia.org\/skyreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.griffithmedia.org\/skyreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.griffithmedia.org\/skyreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/7"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.griffithmedia.org\/skyreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=3022"}],"version-history":[{"count":3,"href":"https:\/\/www.griffithmedia.org\/skyreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3022\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3031,"href":"https:\/\/www.griffithmedia.org\/skyreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3022\/revisions\/3031"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.griffithmedia.org\/skyreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=3022"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.griffithmedia.org\/skyreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=3022"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.griffithmedia.org\/skyreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=3022"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}