What are some skywatching highlights in May 2025?
Find a pair of planets in the sky both in the evenings and mornings, have a look for the Eta Aquarid meteors, and join the watch for the brief and brilliant appearance of a "new star" – an anticipated nova explosion in the Corona Borealis constellation.
0:00 Intro
0:12 May planet viewing
1:03 Eta Aquarid meteor shower
1:48 Waiting for a nova
3:49 May Moon phases
Find a pair of planets in the sky both in the evenings and mornings, have a look for the Eta Aquarid meteors, and join the watch for the brief and brilliant appearance of a "new star" – an anticipated nova explosion in the Corona Borealis constellation.
0:00 Intro
0:12 May planet viewing
1:03 Eta Aquarid meteor shower
1:48 Waiting for a nova
3:49 May Moon phases
Category
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LearningTranscript
00:00What's up from May?
00:04Four bright planets, morning and night.
00:07A chance of meteor showers.
00:10And waiting for a nova.
00:13For planet watching this month, you'll find Mars and Jupiter in the west following sunset.
00:18Mars sticks around for several hours after it gets dark,
00:21but Jupiter is setting by 9.30 or 10 p.m. and getting lower in the sky each day.
00:26The first quarter moon appears right next to the red planet on the third.
00:30Find them in the west during the first half of the night that evening.
00:33In the morning sky, Venus and Saturn are the planets to look for in May.
00:37They begin the month appearing close together on the sky and progressively pull farther apart as the month goes on.
00:44For several days in late May, early risers will enjoy a gathering of the moon with Saturn and Venus in the eastern sky before dawn.
00:52Watch as the moon passes the two planets while becoming an increasingly slimmer crescent.
00:58You'll find the moon hanging between Venus and Saturn on the 23rd.
01:03Early May brings the annual Eta Aquarid meteor shower.
01:07These are meteors that originate from comet Halley.
01:10Earth passes through the comet's dust stream each May and again in October.
01:15Eta Aquarids are fast-moving and a lot of them produce persistent dust trains that linger for seconds after the meteor's initial streak.
01:22This is one of the best annual showers in the southern hemisphere but tends to be more subdued north of the equator where we typically see 10 to 20 meteors per hour.
01:32On the peak night this year, the moon sets by around 3 a.m., leaving dark skies until dawn for ideal viewing conditions.
01:40While the peak is early on the morning of May 6th, the two or three nights before that are also decent opportunities to spy a few shooting stars.
01:48Astronomers have been waiting expectantly for light from a distant explosion to reach us here on Earth.
01:55An event called ANOVA is anticipated to occur sometime in the coming months.
02:00Some 3,000 light-years away is a binary star system called T. Coroni Borealis or TCRB.
02:08It consists of a red giant star with a smaller white dwarf star orbiting closely around it.
02:14Now the giant's outer atmosphere is all puffed up and the dwarf star is close enough that its gravity continually captures some of the giant's hydrogen.
02:23About every 80 years, the white dwarf has accumulated so much of the other star's hydrogen that it ignites a thermonuclear explosion, and that's the NOVA.
02:33T. Coroni Borealis is located in the constellation Corona Borealis, or the Northern Crown, and it's normally far too faint to see with the unaided eye.
02:43But it's predicted the NOVA will be as bright as the constellation's brightest star, which is about as bright as the North Star Polaris.
02:50You'll find Corona Borealis right in between the two bright stars Arcturus and Vega.
02:56You can use the Big Dipper's handle to point you to the right part of the sky.
03:00Try having a look for it on clear, dark nights before the NOVA so you'll have a comparison when a new star suddenly becomes visible there.
03:08Now you may have heard about this months ago, as astronomers started keeping watch for the NOVA midway through 2024, but it hasn't happened yet.
03:16Predicting exactly when NOVAs or any sort of stellar outbursts will happen is tricky.
03:22But excitement began growing when astronomers observed the star to dim suddenly, much as it did right before its previous NOVA in 1946.
03:32When the NOVA finally does occur, it won't stay bright for long, likely flaring in peak brightness for only a few days.
03:39And since it's not predicted again for another 80 years, you might just want to join the watch for this super rare, naked eye, stellar explosion in the sky.
03:50Here are the phases of the Moon for May.
03:52Here are the phases of the Moon for May.