Event Date: December 8th
Time: 6:00 AM
Brief
The eastern sky is already interesting, with Venus and Saturn separating, while brightening Mercury ( -0.5) is very gradually separating from Venus. We will continue to follow the planets' positions over upcoming weeks. However, let's look at two long-named labeled stars in the image below, which at one time, marked the "claws" of Scorpious, soon to emerge from the horizon. Those two claw-stars--Zubeneschamali (north) and Zubenelgenubi (south)--act as a "gateway" for the Sun, planets, and when its nodes are in the right place, the Moon. More on the latter's position in relation to the stars is mentioned in the detailed section.
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click on image to enlarge: courtesy of Starry Night Pro Plus, version 6.4.3, by Simulation Curriculum Corp.
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Detailed
Despite the term given for the pair of stars, we see above that the ecliptic passes just south of Zubenelgenubi. Whereas some planets such as Saturn will have a north-enough ecliptic latitude to pass between the stars over the next two years, as did Venus this time, the Sun passes just a few arc-minutes south of it. That is, the separation between the Sun's disc and the star is very slim. Despite that, along with the Moon's nodes not currently putting it between the stars over the next few days, they still serve their purpose of gateway in another sense: they mark a part of the sky where planets and the Sun are moving from nearly perpendicular to the galactic plane, to a position of the sky where they appear close to the center; that happens further east in Sagittarius, near the Scorpious border. I will show this further tomorrow. Also, as I mentioned a few days ago, seen near the galactic center means alot for the Sun later this month, as it reaches the December solstice. Therefore, since I talked about the Mayan calendar and calculations that day, we can say that for this year, the claw-stars act as a gateway for the Sun to start a new calendar cycle...or however you want to think of it!
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