August 7
The Serpent-Bearer's Head
Sun Position
The Sun is in mid-Leo at roughly +16° declination, still well north. Northern Hemisphere days are clearly shortening; Southern Hemisphere nights are measurably lengthening.
Sky Highlight
The Perseid meteor shower reaches or approaches its annual peak around August 11-13, and on this date activity is already strong. The radiant in Perseus rises in the northeast after dusk for Northern Hemisphere observers; Southern Hemisphere observers can catch occasional Perseids low in the north from mid-latitudes.
Deep Sky Object
M10, a globular cluster in Ophiuchus, lies about 14,300 light-years away and is well positioned on August evenings at favorable altitudes for both hemispheres near the celestial equator. Roughly 80 light-years across, it contains hundreds of thousands of stars and resolves beautifully at the edges in modest telescopes.
Featured Star
Rasalhague, the A5III white giant heading Ophiuchus the Serpent-Bearer, sits 47 light-years away, close enough to resolve its disk with large interferometers. It marks the head of a constellation that straddles the ecliptic yet is absent from most traditional zodiac lists, a celestial technicality that has puzzled stargazers for centuries.
Around This Date
- August 7, 1959Explorer 6 launched from Cape Canaveral's Atlantic Missile Range, becoming the first spacecraft to photograph Earth from orbit and returning the first crude image of the planet from space.
- August 7, 1976Viking 2 entered orbit around Mars, positioning itself for a September landing in Utopia Planitia and extending the Viking program's search for signs of life to a second site.
Ophiuchus carries a serpent and straddles the zodiac, yet most horoscope columns skip right past it, the sky has always been more complicated than the chart.