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[Music]

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what's up for March Venus climbs High

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while Jupiter Dives sunward and the

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little planet that shares its namesake

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with your breakfast cereal Venus and

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Jupiter begin the month very close

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together in the evening Sky following

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their close conjunction on March 1st

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they quickly go their separate ways

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though

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Venus climbs higher in the sky each

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night for the next couple of months

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while Jupiter Dives after the Sun

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the giant planet appears lower in the

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sky each night through the month making

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its exit as an evening object it'll

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reappear in May in the pre-dawn sky with

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Saturn on the 23rd and 24th in the

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couple of hours after Sunset you'll find

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the moon as a beautifully slim Crescent

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hanging just below and the next night

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above blazing bright Venus

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then on the 25th the moon continues

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upward in the Sky Landing right next to

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the brilliant Pleiades star cluster that

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night

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March bringing the arrival of spring in

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the Northern Hemisphere and fall in the

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southern hemisphere it's a time for both

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planting or harvesting crops depending

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on where you live so it's perhaps a

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fitting time to try and spot the planet

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named for a mythical goddess of

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agriculture grains and fertile lands in

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addition to being the origin of the word

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cereal that's dwarf planet series

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this month it's at opposition meaning

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it's directly on the opposite side of

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Earth from the sun this is when a planet

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is around its shortest distance from

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Earth making this the best time to have

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a go at observing it when it's at its

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brightest

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Ceres is the largest object in the main

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asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter

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still it's only about 600 miles wide far

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smaller than our own Moon

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its Dusty surface is peppered with

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impact craters with bright salt deposits

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here and there that hint at the

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possibility of slushy Briny ice beneath

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its surface

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in fact NASA's Dawn spacecraft found

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that Ceres could be up to one-quarter

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water ice on the inside

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now series is too faint to see with the

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unaided eye so to locate it in the

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marched Sky you'll need binoculars or a

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small telescope

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find the lion constellation Leo in the

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Southeast after around 9pm the bright

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bluish white star regulus the Lion's

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Heart should catch your eye first then

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look Eastward about 25 degrees to find

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the nebula which represents the Lion's

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Tail from there series should be about

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eight or nine degrees farther east from

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the nebula it appears as a faint

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star-like point of Light which is why

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when series and objects like it were

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first discovered in the early 19th

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century they were called asteroids which

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means star-like

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since 2006 Series has been classified as

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a dwarf planet along with other

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diminutive worlds in our solar system

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including Pluto aerys haumea and

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makimaki

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wherever you land on the topic of Planet

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vs dwarf planet status for worlds like

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Ceres and Pluto what's really important

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to remember is that the way we think

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about different families of objects in

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our solar system has evolved over time

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and likely will continue to evolve as we

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explore and learn more about them so

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here's hoping you try your hand at

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spotting series as you explore the skies

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above your home planet this month

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here are the phases of the moon for

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stay up to date with all of NASA's

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missions to explore the solar system and

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Beyond at nasa.gov I'm Preston Dykes