Skywatching highlights for June 2021

Skywatching highlights for June 2021 Today’s Video of the Day from the NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory describes what skywatchers can view in June 2021, including a partial solar eclipse.

The eclipse will be visible on June 10 in the northeast U.S., eastern Canada, and Northern Europe. In the United States, the event will take place at sunrise.

On summer evenings, a group of stars that make up the constellation Scorpius, the scorpion, will move across the southern sky.

Also this month, look for Jupiter and Saturn in the east after midnight, and toward the south at dawn.

The June Bootid meteor shower will be active from June 22 through to July 2, with peak activity occurring around the 27th. Total eclipses are rare because the timing of the new moon within the eclipse season has  to be more exact for an alignment between the observer (on Earth) and the centers of the Sun and Moon. Also you can notice the direction of the orbit of the Moon often takes it far enough away from Earth that its actual size is not large enough to block the Sun entirely. Also Total solar eclipses are rare at any particular location because total of the them exists only along a narrow path on the Earth’s surface traced by the Moon’s full shadow or umbra. Therefore there is no to many solar eclipses that happen throughout the year, also is best seen at sunset.

 Video Credit: NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory 

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By Chrissy Sexton, Earth.com Staff Writer