March 29
The Pulse Continues
Sun Position
The Sun is in Aries at roughly +6° declination; the Northern Hemisphere spring is fully established, and Southern Hemisphere autumn is deepening with clear, cooling evenings.
Sky Highlight
Crux is rising earlier each evening as March ends, becoming well-placed for southern observers through April and May. Southern Hemisphere skywatchers in late March get a preview of the prime Crux season: the cross is fully above the horizon in evening hours, surrounded by the Milky Way's richest star fields.
Deep Sky Object
NGC 3766, a bright open cluster in Centaurus, about 7,000 light-years away, visible in binoculars and resolved in small telescopes into over 100 stars; it lies in a rich Milky Way field near Crux and is one of the more rewarding southern-sky binocular targets. Best from latitudes below +20°.
Featured Star
Mimosa (β Cru) pulses on, the same blue giant 280 light-years away, spectral class B0.5III, Beta Cephei variable with its six-hour cycle. Appearing again in late March because Crux is gaining altitude in southern evening skies, Mimosa's intrinsic luminosity (roughly 34,000 times the Sun) makes it one of the physically most powerful stars visible to the naked eye from the Southern Hemisphere.
Around This Date
- March 29, 1974Mariner 10 made its first flyby of Mercury, becoming the first spacecraft to visit that planet and returning the first close-up images of its heavily cratered surface.
- March 29, 1807Heinrich Olbers discovered Vesta, the second-largest asteroid and the brightest asteroid visible from Earth, the only one occasionally bright enough to see with the naked eye.
Mimosa rises a little higher tonight than last week, its six-hour pulse still going, the Cross lifting itself into autumn with quiet regularity.