Venus, Mercury Share Twilight
Hale to the Stars by Alan Hale
After passing on the far side of the sun from Earth early last month, Venus gradually emerges into our evening sky during February. It remains low in the dusk throughout most of the month.
Our solar system’s other inner planet, Mercury, is higher than Venus and can be seen low in the Western evening sky during the latter half of February. On the evening of Wednesday, Feb. 18, the thin crescent moon lies close to Mercury. From the southernmost parts of New Mexico—and points south—it occults, or passes in front of, that world.
The ringed planet, Saturn, is visible in our Western skies during February and, by the end of the month, will set around the end of dusk. Right after midmonth, Saturn will pass close by—as seen from our perspective—the distant world Neptune. For a few nights, the two worlds will be visible in the same field of view of low-power telescopes. Because they will be fairly close to the horizon during this time, they will not be easy to see.
Our most-visible planet this month is Jupiter, which shines brightly high overhead during midevening hours. It eventually sets about an hour before the beginning of dawn.
Uranus is also visible this month and can be easily found high in our Western evening sky slightly to the south of the Pleiades star cluster in the constellation Taurus. Uranus can be easily detected with binoculars and even with the unaided eye from dark rural sites.
An annular solar eclipse, or ring eclipse, takes place Tuesday, Feb. 17. However, few people will see this event, because it will only be visible from portions of Antarctica and the Antarctic Ocean. Even the partial phases of this eclipse can only be seen from far southeastern Africa and the southwestern Indian Ocean.
Fortunately, there are three other eclipses taking place during 2026: one solar eclipse and two lunar eclipses. Both lunar eclipses—during March and August—will be visible from New Mexico.
NASA’s Artemis II mission is scheduled for launch between early February and no later than April. Artemis II will carry a crew of four astronauts. The 10-day mission is a free-return trajectory around the moon, where astronauts on their first flight aboard NASA’s Orion spacecraft will confirm all the spacecraft’s systems operate as designed with crew aboard in the actual environment of deep space. If all goes to plan, this will be the first crewed visit to the moon—the first crewed mission anywhere beyond low-Earth orbit—in more than 50 years.