There is a quickening as we near the Vernal Equinox and the beginning of spring on March 20. We now have twelve hours of sunlight, three more than we had back on the Winter Solstice. Sunrises are an hour and a half earlier and sunsets are an hour and a half later. And you may be noticing that there are three more minutes of sunlight every day in March. Even the sunrises and sunsets are speeding up. Back on the solstice, it took three and a half minutes for the disk of the Sun to disappear below the horizon. On the equinox, there is just three minutes from when the Sun first touches the horizon until it disappears from view.
March begins with a beautiful sight in the western sky soon after sunset. On March 1, Jupiter and Venus will be brilliant and side by side just a Moon’s width apart. Venus is much brighter and on the right. There’s plenty of time to see them in the twilight sky before they set around 8:30pm. They only appear close together because of where they are in their orbits. Watch the rest of the month as they slowly drift apart with Jupiter moving closer to the Sun and becoming more challenging to see. A Crescent Moon passes by Jupiter and Venus on March 23 and 24. On March 26-28, you may be able to glimpse Mercury passing by to the right of Jupiter low in the west after sunset. On March 27 and 28, the Moon is waxing to First Quarter as it passes by reddish Mars high in the south at twilight.
Spring arrives on March 20 at 4:26pm (CDT). You can see the last sunset of winter Sunday evening around 7:10 pm. The first sunrise of spring is Tuesday morning around 7:00 am. Hope you enjoy the quickening!
John Heasley is an astronomy educator and stargazer who enjoys connecting people with the cosmos. He volunteers with NASA/JPL as a Solar System Ambassador , with the International Dark-Sky Association as an Advocate, and the International Astronomical Union as a Dark Sky Ambassador. For more information about stargazing in southwest WI, like Driftless Stargazing LLC on Facebook and find out whenever there’s something awesome happening in the skies.
Driftless Dark Skies: Five Worlds at Once
As the New Year begins, we will be able to see all five classical planets at the same time. The last time we were able to see Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn all at once was eleven years ago when they were also visible in the sky before sunrise. For the...
Christmas Traditions in Driftless Wisconsin
My memories of Christmas begin with lutefisk and lefse, the Norwegian feast my mother made each year to celebrate my father’s Scandinavian heritage. The smell of lutefisk – a cod cured in lye – wafting through the house on Christmas Eve sent me in the opposite...
Driftless Dark Skies: Living in Space
Wash: That sounds like something out of science fiction. Zoë: You live in a spaceship, dear. We have been living in space for over 15 years now. Since November 2000, over 220 people from 17 countries have continuously crewed the International Space Station. The ISS...