April 2
The Grain Bearer Rises
Sun Position
The Sun is in Aries at roughly +5° declination. Days continue lengthening in the northern hemisphere; southern hemisphere skies are cooling toward autumn evenings.
Sky Highlight
Early April is prime time for the Virgo Cluster of galaxies, which transits high in the south at mid-northern latitudes during evening hours. The cluster's dozens of bright members are accessible with modest equipment under dark skies, making this the best multi-galaxy hunting season of the year.
Deep Sky Object
M49 (NGC 4472), elliptical galaxy, Virgo Cluster, about 55 million light-years. M49 is the brightest member of the Virgo Cluster and the first Virgo Cluster galaxy Messier cataloged; it harbors a central black hole estimated at roughly 500 million solar masses. Visible from both hemispheres with a small telescope.
Featured Star
Spica (α Vir) is a close binary 250 light-years away: a B1 blue giant and a B2 companion orbiting each other every four days, their mutual gravity distorting both stars into egg shapes. It was Spica's precise position, compared to records from 150 years earlier, that let Hipparchus identify the precession of the equinoxes in the second century BCE.
Around This Date
- April 2, 19682001: A Space Odyssey had its world premiere in Washington, DC, a film that shaped public imagination of spaceflight, artificial intelligence, and humanity's place in the cosmos more than any other in the twentieth century.
- April 5, 1973Pioneer 11 launched toward Jupiter and Saturn, eventually becoming the second human-made object to leave the solar system.
Spica looks like a single point of light, but two stars are quietly pulling each other out of round, 250 light-years away.