Most references refer to the full moon of February as the Snow Moon, Hunger Moon or Wolf Moon. It was known as the Hunger Moon by the Passamaquoddy Tribe as it was a time when supplies were running low and it was hard to hunt or fish during the winter months. Others called it the Full Snow Moon as the heaviest snows usually fall during this month making hunting difficult. One tribe, whose identity was not established, called it the Moon when Baby Bears are Born, and the Potawatomi and others called it the Moon of the Wolves as hungry packs roamed the forests.

Focus on the planets

Mercury is one of three planets to grace the predawn sky in February. Look for the innermost planet very low on the southeast horizon about an hour before dawn as the month opens. Mercury remains in view until about midmonth when it becomes lost in the growing light of dawn.

Venus sparkles to the upper right of Mercury. Although Venus is now far distant from Earth and fainter than normal, it is still the most striking feature of the morning sky.

Mars is the third member of the planetary triumvirate found on the eastern horizon at dawn. Mars is located to the upper right of Venus and to the north of orange-red Antares, who rivals the Red Planet in both size and brightness.

Jupiter rises in the east at sunset and remains in the sky all night. Jupiter is setting in the west as Venus rises in the east before dawn and a comparison of the two will reveal that Venus is about five times brighter.

Saturn is high in the southeast at sunset and appears to be nearly overhead by early evening, where it is situated above the familiar constellation of Orion. Saturn’s rings are fully tilted, making for some of the best telescopic viewing of the winter months.

Uranus and Neptune are situated too close to the sun to be visible this month.

Pluto is low in the southeast before dawn where the dim, far distant planet is in Ophiuchus.

Our celestial neighborhood

Last month, a group led by University of Texas at Austin astronomers announced that they had “weighed” a planet circling a star more than 15 light-years away. Stars can be shown to have unseen companions by observing their Doppler light shift.

This means the star’s light waves change as they move toward or away from us and any “wobble” in the spectrum is due to the gravitational tug of the companion. But a precise orbit must be known to determine if the companion is a relatively light planet or something more massive. The Hubble Space Telescope was able to pinpoint the precise orbit and show that the distant red dwarf star Gliese near Aquarius had a planet weighing in at 1.89 to 2.4 times the mass of Jupiter. This was no minor feat as the Hubble instrument, the Fine Guidance Sensors also used to point and stabilize the HST, had to detect a wobble in the star’s orbit equivalent to the size of a quarter at a distance of 3,000 miles!

February events

1: Sunrise, 6:55 a.m.; sunset, 4:43 p.m. New moon, 5:50 a.m. Chinese New Year. The year 2003 is the Chinese lunar year 4701, the Year of the Ram. Look to the southeast about an hour before sunrise for a view of Mercury, Venus and Mars in an ascending line starting from the lower left and going to the upper right.

2: Candlemas or Groundhog Day, a cross-quarter day marking the midpoint between the winter solstice and spring equinox.

7: Moon at apogee or farthest distance from Earth today.

9: Moon in first quarter, 6:12 a.m.

14: Happy Valentine’s Day!

16: The sun enters Aquarius on the ecliptic. Full moon, 6:52 p.m. Look to the east about 2 hours after sunset for the full moon in Leo. The bright star directly opposite is Regulus, while Jupiter shines to the moon’s upper right.

19: The sun enters the astrological sign of Pisces but, astronomically, has just entered Aquarius. Moon at perigee or closest approach to Earth today.

23: Moon in last quarter, 11:47 a.m.

24: The moon shines between Mars, to its left, and Antares, to its right, at dawn.

25: The Delta Leonid meteor shower peaks around this date. A weak shower of slow meteors originating from Leo throughout the night.

27: Look for Venus shining low in the southeast at dawn with the thin crescent moon beneath it.

28: Sunrise, 6:15 a.m.; sunset, 5:22 p.m.