January 26
The Red Shoulder
Sun Position
The Sun lies in Aquarius, about 19.1° south of the celestial equator. In the Northern Hemisphere the days are still short but lengthening; in the Southern Hemisphere this is high summer with long, warm evenings.
Sky Highlight
Betelgeuse marks Orion's shoulder, a red supergiant so large it would swallow the inner solar system if placed at the Sun. Its brightness wavers visibly over months. Visible worldwide.
Deep Sky Object
The Orion Nebula (M42), the sword's glowing heart about 1,340 light-years away, the nearest large region of active star formation. Both hemispheres.
Featured Star
Sirius (α CMa), a main-sequence A-type in Canis Major, 8.6 light-years away. Sirius, the brightest star in the sky, the dog that once predicted the Nile flood.
Around This Date
- January 26, 1962NASA's Ranger 3 launched toward the Moon, intended to hard-land instruments, it missed the Moon by 22,000 miles after a guidance malfunction, the latest in a string of early Ranger failures.
- January 27, 1967Astronauts Gus Grissom, Ed White, and Roger Chaffee died in a cabin fire aboard Apollo 1 during a launch rehearsal on the pad, the first fatalities of the American space program and the event that fundamentally redesigned the spacecraft.
A dying giant marks the warrior's shoulder, red and uncertain.