MARCH 2025

Moon phases

Phase Date
First Quarter Friday 7th
Full Moon Friday 14th
Third Quarter Saturday 22nd
New Moon Thursday 27th

Moon distances

Lunar apogee (furthest from Earth) is on Tuesday 18th at 406,295 km.

Lunar perigee (closest to Earth) is on Sunday 30th at 358,128 km.

*When the sun is at its highest, crossing the meridian or local longitude.

Partial Lunar Eclipse this month

On the evening of Friday 14th, a partial lunar eclipse will be visible from Melbourne. A total lunar eclipse will have occurred for the eastern Pacific and most of the Americas. Then, as the moon rises for eastern Australia, observers in Melbourne can catch the latter part as a partial lunar eclipse as the moon moves out of the Earth's outer or penumbral shadow. A high location and a clear view to the eastern horizon is recommended as the moon will have just risen and the event will be all too brief.

Next Total Lunar Eclipses

Later this year, in the early hours of Monday, 22 September, we will experience a total lunar eclipse as the Moon passes through the deepest part of Earth's shadow, the umbra. Totality for that eclipse will last over eighty minutes, from 3:30am to 4:52 am.

After that, the next total lunar eclipse for eastern Australia will be in 2026 on the night of 3-4 March with totality of almost one hour.

Planets

Mercury is an evening object but not visible from Melbourne's latitude.

Venus is not visible this month as it is about to pass in front of the Sun for its inferior solar conjunction when it will be 'conjoined' with the Sun from our perspective. Next month it will return as the 'morning star' before dawn in the east.

Mars is an evening planet seen from 8pm in the north at dusk until it fades from view in the north-west by 1:00am.

Jupiter can be seen in evening twilight in the north from 8pm until it sets in the north-west around 11:40pm.

Saturn is not seen this month as it is about to move behind the Sun for solar conjunction but will reappear in the early morning next month just before sunrise.

Meteors

The alpha-centaurids and beta-centaurids are active from 2nd to 25th peaking on the 8th. They are different but it is difficult to distinguish between them. Occurring low in the south near the Two Pointers, they are not strong showers but often have fireballs and persistent trails. 25 per hour can occur but six per hour has been more usual.

Stars and constellations

In the East

High in the sky is Sirius, the brightest star at night and the principal star in Canis Major (Greater Dog). This is one of Orion's two hunting dogs which is why Sirius is also referred to as The Dog Star. Directly below Sirius is the star Procyon which marks the location of Canis Minor, Orion's lesser dog.

Many cultures have recognised the first evening appearance of Sirius as marking a special time during the year for religious, agricultural or other reasons. It sits 8.6 light years away making it the fifth nearest system to us and its energy output reflects a name appropriately derived from the Greek seirios, meaning glowing or scorching.

Sirius is, however, a binary system. Sirius A is twice the mass of our sun, almost 17 times as large and 25 times as luminous. Small faint Sirius B, however, was once a star similar to our Sun but in its late evolution it lost its outer layers to leave behind an extremely hot dense remnant core, a white dwarf, a little smaller than the Earth but with the mass almost that of the Sun. Sirius A and B orbit their mutual centre of mass every 50 years.

In the North to North-West

Directly north lies Orion, the hunter, seen in the southern hemisphere upside down. The famous three stars of his belt are Mintaka, Alnilam and Alnitak.

From his belt and going upper right is a line of stars which forms his scabbard, in the centre of which is the beautiful Orion Nebula, a vast stellar nursery 1500 light years from us. Upper left in Orion is the blue-white supergiant star Rigel (one of his feet) and lower right is the red supergiant Betelgeuse (one of his shoulders).

Orion's three belt stars also mark the base of the southern hemisphere's Saucepan asterism.

To the north-west is the open star cluster the Hyades 153 light years away and forms the inverted V of the head of Taurus, the bull. The red-giant star Aldebaran at its lower right corner is much closer to us at 65 light years.

To the left is the Pleiades, a close cluster of young blue stars 430 light years from us. These stars formed together and are gravitationally bound together, although over millions of years it is expected the cluster will slowly disperse. Also known as The Seven Sisters, and for many cultures it represents a group of women.

In the South-East to South-West

The Southern Cross and the Two Pointers, (Alpha & Beta Centauri) are low in the south-east. In the south-west are the two small nearby galaxies, the Magellanic Clouds, named in honour of 16th century explorer Ferdinand Magellan who embarked on the first circumnavigation of the globe. They look like faint fuzzy patches but are best seen away from city lights. The earliest known physical depictions of them are in petroglyphs in South America.

Arcing across the night sky, and slowly wheeling as the Earth rotates during the night to the east, is the majestic Milky Way - billions of distant stars of our galaxy.

In visible light our view of the galaxy is largely restricted to our local spiral arm which is one of several that sit in the disc of the galaxy. We are looking 'edge on' into the flat disc of billions of stars. By contrast, the two darker sides of the night sky a view out of the galactic plane. In those directions we seen far fewer stars for a few thousand light years before intergalactic space begins.

International Space Station

ISS orbits every 90 minutes at an average distance of 400 km. It appears like a bright star moving slowly across the night sky.

Heavens Above gives predictions for visible passes of space stations and major satellites, live sky views and 3D visualisations. Be sure first to enter your location under 'Configuration'.

On this day

1st 2003, the Space Shuttle Columbia (USA) disintegrated on re-entry killing all seven astronauts and halting the shuttle program for over two years.

1st 1970, US astronomer Vera Rubin finds evidence of 'dark matter' by studying motion of stars and galaxy rotation not consistent with Newton's laws.

3rd 1996, Luna 9 (USSR) made first soft-landing on moon and sent first panoramic images from the Ocean of Storms.

4th 1976, Lunar Orbiter 3 (USA) launches to the moon to select Apollo landing sites.

5th 1963, Dutch astronomer Maarten Schmidt discovers quasars (quasi-stellar radio sources).

7th 1979, Pluto moves inside Neptune's orbit for the first time since its 1930 discovery.

8th 1969, the Allende meteorite, the largest carbonaceous meteorite found, lands near the village of Allende, Mexico.

9th 1986, first module of Mir space station (USSR) is launched into Earth orbit.

9th 1986, last visit of Comet Halley met by flotilla of probes (notably ESA's Giotto) with comet's next return due mid-2061.

9th 1473, birth of Nicholas Copernicus, famous for his sun-centred theory in On the Revolutions of the Celestial Spheres (1543) which triggered the Copernican Revolution.

9th 1975, Soyuz 17 (USSR) returns to earth setting Soviet record of 29 days in space.

11th 2003, first measurements using WMAP (Wilkinson Microwave Anisotropy Probe) data to reveal relic Big Bang temperature as a variation across the universe.

12th 1947, 100 tonne iron meteorite falls in Sikhote Alin, southeast Russia. Largest in recorded history, brighter than the sun, with deafening sound and a smoke trail lasting several hours.

12th 1961, Venera 1 probe (USSR) launched to Venus by Soviet Union.

12th 2001, NEAR Shoemaker (USA) is first probe to land on an asteroid - 433 Eros.

13th 2004, discovery of 'largest diamond', white star BPM 37093, is announced.

14th 1990, Voyager 1 (USA) takes famous 'pale blue dot' picture of Earth as it looks back while speeding out of solar system.

15th 1564, birth of astronomer, physicist and engineer Galileo Galilei in Pisa, Italy. Supported heliocentric solar system, and studied motion, telescopes, moons of Jupiter, rings of Saturn, phases of Venus, Sun spots, and features of the moon.

15th 2013, 20meter Chelyabinsk meteor explodes 30km over Southern Urals, Russia, travelling at 60,000kph with shock wave damaging buildings and causing many injuries due to flying glass.

16th 1771, Charles Messier's catalogue of 100 deep space objects.

17th 1965, Ranger 8 (USA) probe launched to image the moon in aid of Apollo landings.

18th 1930, Clyde Tombaugh (USA) discovers Pluto using a blink comparator in a systematic search for the supposed 'Planet X' beyond Neptune.

20th 1962, first American astronaut into orbit, John Glenn, in Mercury Friendship 7 in three orbits lasting almost 5 hours.

22nd 1632, Galileo publishes Dialogue Concerning the Two Chief World Systems which compared solar system models and led to conflict with and censure by the Catholic Church.

23rd 1987, SN1987A, closest and brightest supernova since 1054 observed in Large Magellanic Cloud 168,000 light years away. Visible to naked eye for months.

24th 1968, post-graduate student Jocelyn Bell (Northern Ireland) discovers first pulsars.

26th 1966, first Saturn 1B rocket launch, which led to Saturn V Apollo missions.

27th 1942, JS Hey (UK) discovered radio emissions coming from the Sun.

28th 1997, first evidence for gamma ray bursts (GRB) as extra-galactic energy sources.