JAMES:
Welcome to Star Gazers.

I'm James Albury, director of the Kika Silva
Pla Planetarium in Gainesville, Florida.

DEAN:
And I'm Dean Regas, astronomer from the Cincinnati

Observatory, and we're here to help you find
you way around the sky.

Now I m not a morning person, but I'm gonna
set my alarm this week to wake up before dawn.

JAMES: Really?!

DEAN:
Yep.

I can t believe
I m saying this but I m going to get up

and drag myself out of bed at, (gulp), 5 o clock
in the morning to star gaze or should

I say planet-gaze.

JAMES:
Wow, this is serious.

And with good reason.

As a morning person myself, I ve been noticing
three planets in the sky before the Sun rises:

Jupiter, Mars and Saturn.

DEAN:
And to add some extra flavor to the astronomer-grade

coffee I ll need to drink to wake up that
early, the Moon will be passing through.

JAMES:
Perfect!

Since it s not a workday, you can go back
to sleep after you see it all.

DEAN: My thoughts exactly.

Let s head to the morning sky!

DEAN:
Okay we have our sky set up for Monday March

5th at 5 AM, facing southeast.

It s dark, it s clear, it may be cold,
but what a view!

JAMES:
Among the stars, you can find three planets

among the constellations.

And they re all lined up.

Jupiter is about halfway up in the southern
sky and is the easiest to find since it is

the brightest.

DEAN:
That s an understatement.

Jupiter is significantly brighter than any
star at this time of night

er, morning.

It is suspiciously bright.

JAMES:
If you have a really good imagination you

might be able to imagine Jupiter
up and to the right of Scorpius the Scorpion.

Scorpius is usually a summer constellation
but one of the joys of waking up early, Dean,

is that you get a preview of the stars.

DEAN:
That s right, James.

And, just to the left of Scorpius we come
to our next planet and it should shine with

a steady reddish glow.

That is Mars.

Now you may notice another red star in the
vicinity.

Back in Scorpius you can find Antares.

Antares may look a little like Mars, but man-o-man,
there are some big differences!

JAMES:
First off, notice the name of this star: Ant-ares.

Ares was the Greek god of war and the equivalent
of the Roman god Mars.

So Ant-ares is like the Anti-Mars.

They re both the same color.

DEAN:
But that is where the similarities end.

Mars is a planet about 4200 miles wide and
is about 125 million miles away.

Those sound like impressive numbers but

JAMES:
Antares is a red supergiant star almost 600

million miles in diameter and about 600 light
years from Earth.

That s the equivalent of 3.5 quadrillion
miles away.

DEAN:
Whoa!

If we place Mars and Antares at the same distance
from us, this is what they d look like.

Uh, can you even see Mars?

JAMES:
That leaves one more planet to find and Jupiter

and Mars can help.

Connect a line from Jupiter through Mars and
keep going.

You will run into another pretty bright star
that should be a little yellow in color.

That is actually the ringed planet Saturn.

DEAN:
Ah, my favorite!

Saturn is about one billion miles away but
is so big and reflective that it still shines

brightly in the morning skies.

JAMES:
And here s where it gets even better.

If we advance our time to Wednesday March
7th, look what joins the planet line-up

DEAN:
The Moon!

It ll be right next to Jupiter.

And then as the week progresses, on the 8th
and 9th, the Moon will get closer and closer

to Mars.

And on Saturday morning March 10th it will
lie between Mars and Saturn.

JAMES:
And to round out next week, Sunday morning

March 11th the Moon will be just to the left
of Saturn.

JAMES:
Wow, what a week to get up early.

DEAN:
I love seeing the planets even if it is 5

AM.

And you ll see Jupiter in the south, Mars
and Saturn in the southeast and don t forget

the Moon passing through from March 7th to
March 11th.

JAMES:
And if you can, take a look at all four objects

through a telescope.

The craters of the Moon look totally awesome
through even a simple telescope.

DEAN:
And with Jupiter you can see stripes on the

planet and four moons.

Some tiny features on Mars, and the breathtakingly
beautiful rings of Saturn.

It s all there when you

BOTH: Keep looking up!