What's Up In January

By Bernie Reim

​     The month of January is named for the Roman god Janus, who faces both forward and backward at the same time. Janus is the god of beginnings and transitions. As we welcome in the New Year and the first full month of winter, let us reflect on what the past year has taught us and look forward to all the new things that 2025 will teach us if we can remain open-minded enough.
    The days are already getting longer since the winter solstice, but this is a very slow process at first. We are only gaining about one minute per day until the middle of this month. The sun is setting a little later than at the solstice, but the sun is also still rising later each morning until the ninth. For us at this latitude of the Portland area that will be 7 :14 am. This happens because the earth is tilted at 23.5 degrees to the ecliptic plane and we orbit the sun in an elliptical shape and not a perfect circle.
      Despite the long and cold nights, this will be a great month to enjoy and learn more about several interesting celestial events. Four of the five brightest planets will be nicely aligned along the ecliptic and visible in the evening sky. Only Mercury is too close to the sun now and it will make a morning appearance until the middle of the month. Mars will reach opposition on the 16th when it will be at its best in 26 months. Venus and Saturn will have a close conjunction in the evening sky on the 17th, the moon will have two nice conjunctions with Venus this month. We will be closest to the sun on Saturday morning the 4th at 91.4 million miles instead of our average of 93 million miles, which is called one astronomical unit. The moon will not interfere with the Quadrantid Meteor shower this month which has a very short peak on Friday morning, January 3. Then the best highlight of all this month will be the full moon occulting or covering up Mars on the evening of Monday the 13th which will be visible for everyone in the contiguous United States, much of southern and eastern Canada, Mexico, and West Africa.
     

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