January 4
The Steady Wanderer
Sun Position
The Sun lies in Capricornus, about 22.8° 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
Mars and the winter Milky Way share the evening sky, the faint band running from Canis Major up through Auriga overhead. Best traced from a dark site in either hemisphere.
Deep Sky Object
The Crab Nebula (M1), the expanding wreck of a supernova seen in 1054, about 6,500 light-years away in Taurus. A small-telescope object visible across both hemispheres.
Featured Star
Betelgeuse (α Ori), a red supergiant in Orion, about 700 light-years away. Betelgeuse, the shoulder of Orion, a red supergiant awaiting catastrophe.
Around This Date
- January 4, 2004NASA's Spirit rover landed in Gusev Crater on Mars, beginning a surface mission originally planned for 90 days that continued for over six years.
- January 4, 1643Isaac Newton was born (Gregorian calendar) in Woolsthorpe, England, the physicist who would later derive the law of universal gravitation that explains the orbital motion visible every clear night.
A thousand-year-old explosion still has somewhere to go.