THE EARTH HAS almost made it through another rotation around the sun.
For a year like 2021, that’s an achievement in itself.
Even in a tumultuous year, the skies have brought some highlights, from sightings of shooting stars to a flower supermoon to a partial lunar eclipse.
And let’s not forget this look inside a homemade observatory in Raheny, where Dubliner Dave Greenan has made five independent discoveries from his back garden.
To ring in the new year on earth and above, The Journal spoke to David Moore, Chair of Astronomy Ireland and Editor of Astronomy Ireland magazine, about what the skies have in store in 2022.
An early Monday morning eclipse
Two eclipses will happen in the skies over Ireland in 2022 – a lunar eclipse in May and a solar eclipse in October.
“The first one is on the morning of 16 May, when we’ll have the moon being totally eclipsed,” Moore said.
“We’ll get to see most of it in that just as the moon is setting, it’ll be fully eclipsed. We’ll certainly see the partial phase,” he said.
“That’s one of the highlights of the year. It’s a Monday morning, so I’d be recommending to people to take the day off work or at least go in late or get up very early!”
Later in the year, on 25 October, the moon will partially eclipse a sun.
That eclipse is expected to happen on a Tuesday in the late morning before noon.
“They’re two fairly nice events that anyone can see.”
The two big meteor showers Ireland sees each year are the Perseids in August and the Geminids in December.
“We’ve been getting reports on these over the years, and it’s the general public who tell us by counting how many they see. It looks like the Perseids are getting a little bit weaker and the Geminids are getting a little bit stronger,” Moore explained.
In 2022, the Perseids are set to peak on 12 and 13 August from Friday night until Saturday morning, but they may be difficult to see.
“The only problem is that there’s a nearly full moon in the sky and that will drown out the fainter ones.
“It won’t be as spectacular as it is when there’s no moon in the sky.”
But in December, the long nights give a better opportunity to see the showers in the dark.
“They’ll have a bit of a moon around as well but it doesn’t rise until after about ten o’clock,” Moore said.
Around that time of the year, the sun sets at four o’clock. You’ve got six hours between the sun setting and the moon rising, so that’s plenty for most people. Very few of us stay up til dawn watching it.
The Geminids should be strongest on the evenings around the 13th and 14th of December.
Astronomers are hoping for a clear night on 8 December to watch an unusual sight – the Moon passing in front of Mars while the planet is close to earth.
Moore explained that Mars will be the “brightest thing in the sky in December” as it travels near to us.
“But on the night it’s actually technically closest, the moon is going to pass in front of it, which is extremely rare,” he said.
“That’s a huge highlight.”
If the weather allows a glimpse at the sky, spectators should be able to see it with the naked eye and get a “great view” with binoculars, while “anyone who’s got a telescope will have an incredible view”.
“That doesn’t happen often. I don’t think I’ve ever seen Mars pass behind the moon,” Moore said.
“We’re really hoping December the 8th next year will be clear.”
In the summer, Saturn is best seen a couple of months either side of August.
Jupiter, which is near Saturn in the sky, will be best spotted for a few months either side of September, when it’s at its closest to the earth.
Around that time of year, Astronomy Ireland will be hosting “Star-B-Q”, a barbecue under the stars.
It’s open to the public. It happens up in the Wicklow mountains – beautifully dark sky, giant telescopes and amazing views. You don’t just see the planets, you see all these galaxies in gas clouds that you read about, you can actually see them live.
The 2022 Star-B-Q on 27 August marks the 30th anniversary of the first time the event was held in 1992.
The International Space Station is visible for about two weeks every two months during the year, with the first one of those two week-windows coming on 18 January.
When it passes, it appears as the brightest object in the sky from earth, and it looks like it’s moving at the speed of a high-flying jet aircraft.
“It takes a few minutes to cross the sky. If you see something flick across the sky in a fraction of a second, that’s a meteor – a shooting star. They’re about a hundred times faster than the ISS,” Moore said.
“The ISS will be the brightest thing in the sky when it flies over. It’ll outshine anything, even any aircraft that are up there.”
Astronomy Ireland releases daily predictions of when the ISS may be visible.
“The great thing with ISS is that it’s got people on board… usually about six or seven people on board,” Moore said.
That’s a really spectacular sight. I’ve seen that in Grafton Street with lights on and buildings on either side… passing through the tiny gap between buildings. If you can see it there, you can see it anywhere.
2022 will be an important year for space research as the new James Webb Telescope sets out on a major mission: capturing the first stars that were created in the universe after the big bang.
The telescope was launched on Christmas Day and can see objects that are too old and too far away for the famous Hubble Space Telescope to observe.
“Hubble’s main mission was to date the universe, to figure out how old the universe was. Back when it was launched, people didn’t know if the universe was 10 billion or 20 billion years old. Now, they’re arguing over is it 13.8 or 13.7,” Moore said.
“You never know what James Webb is going to find… The main thing it’s going to figure out is are we right in how the big bang was started. Computer simulations suggest what happened, but no one is really sure.
“James Webb is designed to see in the infrared, so it can see the things that are rushing away from us at nearly the speed of light right at the edge of the universe.”
There’s some Irish involvement in the telescope, with a team at the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies leading work on its Mid-Infrared Instrument – a camera that is key to letting the telescope study the universe in precise detail.
“And of course, we’ve no idea what other things might happen,” Moore said.
The comet that was brightest in December 2021 – Comet LEONARD, was only discovered in January 2021, months before it lit up the sky.
“That could happen again,” Moore said.
“There’s always the unexpected.”
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