January 29
The Other Twin
Sun Position
The Sun lies in Aquarius, about 18.4° 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
Castor, the fainter Gemini twin, is in fact a system of six stars bound together, unresolvable as such by eye. Visible worldwide.
Deep Sky Object
The Beehive (M44) again, climbing higher each evening as Cancer rises, its swarm of stars resolving in binoculars. Both hemispheres.
Featured Star
Castor (α Gem), a white main-sequence pair in Gemini, 51.5 light-years away. Castor, the mortal twin, hiding five more stars behind one point of light.
Around This Date
- January 29, 1964NASA's first Saturn I rocket launched its first operational test payload, the heaviest object placed in orbit up to that date, and a direct ancestor of the Saturn V that would carry humans to the Moon.
- January 31, 1966Soviet Luna 9 launched toward the Moon, five days later it would make the first successful soft landing on any extraterrestrial body and return photographs of the surface.
What looks like one star is six, circling in the dark.