February 25
The Pointer Star
Sun Position
The Sun is in Pisces near +12° declination. Northern hemisphere mid-latitude days are near 11.5 hours; Ursa Major rides high in the northeast by late evening.
Sky Highlight
No annual event today. Late February evenings are the first chance of the year to see Ursa Major well-placed high in the northeastern sky. Dubhe and Merak, the 'pointer stars,' are climbing into easy view.
Deep Sky Object
M81, a spiral galaxy (Bode's Galaxy) about 12 million light-years away. One of the brightest galaxies in the northern sky and the dominant member of the M81 Group, M81 is gravitationally interacting with M82, pulling tidal streams of hydrogen gas between them. Best from northern hemisphere mid-latitudes and circumpolar at high northern latitudes.
Featured Star
Dubhe (α UMa) is an orange giant 123 light-years away, spectral class K0III, and unlike most Ursa Major stars it does not share the group's common proper motion. It is drifting slowly away from its dipper companions. The pointer that finds Polaris is itself moving in a different direction than the rest of the dipper, which will dissolve the familiar shape over tens of thousands of years.
Around This Date
- February 25, 1969NASA's Mariner 6 launched toward Mars, arriving in July 1969 for the first dual-spacecraft flyby of Mars alongside Mariner 7.
- February 26, 1966NASA launched the first uncrewed Apollo mission, AS-201, a suborbital test of the Command and Service Module heat shield.
The pointer star is slowly walking away from the dipper it belongs to, loyalty, in the sky, is temporary.