01/31/2026
Full Snow Moon: Feb 1
February opens under a Full Snow Moon. Snow-covered ground reflects its silver light, making winter nights glow brighter than usual. This is an excellent time of year to bundle up for a Full Moon snowshoe!
Comet Wierzchoś: Feb 17
Discovered in 2024, Comet Wierzchoś makes its closest approach to Earth on February 17. Look low in the southwestern sky with binoculars or a small telescope—it’s about as far from Earth as the Sun.
Planet Parade: Feb 28
Six planets align at the end of February. While still visible before and after, the alignment peaks on the 28th. Mercury, Venus, Jupiter, and Saturn are visible to the naked eye, while Uranus and Neptune require optics for viewing (binoculars or a telescope).
Can you find the star Regulus?
As the brightest star in Leo at the base of the “sickle,” Regulus glows with a subtle blue hue. Spot it near the Full Snow Moon on February 1–2, then watch it rise earlier each night, moving from east to south by midnight.
✨Let's learn about Mercury!✨
🔭Size: The smallest planet in our Solar System, with a diameter about 38% of Earth’s and only 5.5% of its mass. It has a massive iron core making it very dense.
🔭Composition: A rocky terrestrial planet with a silicate crust and mantle surrounding a large iron-nickel core. Its thin exosphere contains oxygen, sodium, hydrogen, helium, and potassium.
🔭Surface Features: Covered in craters like the Moon, with huge basins such as Caloris, smooth volcanic plains, and extreme temperature swings from −173°C at night to 427°C in the day.
🔭Rotation & Orbit: Rotates once every 59 Earth days and orbits the Sun in 88 days, in a unique 3:2 spin-orbit resonance (3 rotations for every 2 orbits).
🔭Moons: None. Mercury has no natural satellites.
🔭Rings: None.
🔭Magnetic Field: Has a weak magnetic field (~1% of Earth’s) generated by its partially molten core, helping deflect some solar wind.
🔭As the closest planet to the Sun, Mercury influences nearby asteroids; historically important for helping confirm Einstein’s theory of relativity due to its unusual orbital motion.
Happy stargazing!
