January 3
The Far Side Answered
Sun Position
The Sun lies in Capricornus, about 22.9° 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
With the Quadrantids fading, the winter sky settles into its main act: Orion and the great hexagon of bright stars now stand due south in the early evening.
Deep Sky Object
The Hyades, the nearest open cluster at roughly 150 light-years, forming the V-shaped face of Taurus around (but in front of) Aldebaran. Easily seen from both hemispheres.
Featured Star
Rigel (β Ori), a blue-white supergiant in Orion, about 860 light-years away. Rigel, Orion's left foot, a blue supergiant 120,000 times the Sun's output.
Around This Date
- January 3, 2019China's Chang'e 4 made the first soft landing on the far side of the Moon, touching down in the Von Kármán Crater, a hemisphere of the Moon that no spacecraft had previously reached from the surface.
- January 3, 1963Mariner 2, which had completed the first successful planetary flyby at Venus on December 14, 1962, transmitted its final signal and went silent, ending the first interplanetary mission.
The hidden hemisphere of the Moon stopped being a mystery.