The Summer Triangle is not a constellation, but it is a very popular pattern in the summer sky. It is composed of three bright stars: Vega, Altair and Deneb. Photo courtesy of Starry Night
The famous star pattern known as the Summer Triangle is now high in the evening sky. It is well-known but it is not an official constellation. No one is sure who first created this pattern. Various astronomers have mentioned over the years, including a reference by astronomer Joseph Johann von Littrow in his 1866 star atlas. Author H. A. Rey and British astronomer Patrick Moore made the pattern very popular in the 1950s.
It is made up of three very bright stars. Vega is the brightest of the three and it is one of the first stars you’ll see after sunset. Vega is in the constellation Lyra the harp. At the southern tip of the triangle is Altair, the brightest star in the constellation Aquila the eagle. The third star is Deneb. This star marks the tail of Cygnus, the swan.
Of three stars, Altair is the closest. It is a little over 16 light years from the sun. Vega isn’t much further at 25 light years. Deneb on the other hand, is quite far. It is at least 2,600 light years away from us.
Even though Deneb is the dimmest of the three stars, it is actually the most luminous of them. Deneb is about 20 times more massive and 200,000 times brighter than the sun. It is its much greater distance that makes it appear dimmer than the other two stars in the triangle.
The Summer Triangle is in the sky the whole night. You can spot it high in the eastern sky after sunset. The trio is highest in the southern sky at about 12:30 a.m. You can see them setting in the western sky at about 5 a.m.
The Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft was successfully launched on July 14. It is expected to land near the south pole of the moon on Aug. 23.
Photo courtesy of Indian Space Research Organisation
Indian Moonshot Launches
India’s Chandrayaan-3 mission successfully launched on July 14. The spacecraft is expected to land on the moon next month on Aug. 23. If successful, India will be the fourth nation to land there and first to land in the relatively unexplored south polar region. The lander carries a small six-wheeled rover that weighs about 60 pounds. It is equipped with cameras, a drill and two different spectrometers that will examine the composition of the surface and soils. One of the main goals of the mission is measure the presence of water in the soil that was first detected by the Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft in 2008.
Kevin D. Conod is the Planetarium Astronomer at the County College of Morris and president of the North Jersey Astronomical Group.
