2020 is announced as the year of the shooting stars: it will be easier to admire the swarms of meteors darting in the sky because the moonlight will not disturb the show and, contrary to what happened in 2019, it will let the light trails of the shooting stars dominate the scene. After two years also Mars is preparing to return to the limelight, brighter than ever; more discreet the Moon, which for 2020 prepares eclipses of penumbra, while the Sun will offer an annular and a total eclipse.
To greet 2020, the swarm of Quadrantids is in January. "The peak is expected in the night between 3 and 4 January", reports the astrophysicist Gianluca Masi, head of the Virtual Telescope. At dawn on January 4 - he continues - the conditions will exist. It is not among the most spectacular swarms, but it never disappoints ".
The real show is expected on August 12 with the Perseids, the famous tears of San Lorenzo, followed on December 14 by the Geminids. "On both occasions - observes Masi - we will be able to redo the bad vintage just passed, in which the Moon has been a spoiler". In the case of the Perseids, in fact, the Moon will set soon and for the Geminids it will be absent.
On January 10 and June 5 the two lunar eclipses of the year are expected, both of penumbra. They will be unspectacular because they occur when the Moon crosses the penumbra of the Earth without being hidden by the shadow: "it will appear a little darker and opaque".
The spectacle of the Sun is more decisive: on June 21 in the aftermath of the summer solstice, it will be admired in an annular eclipse "clearly visible in Africa and Asia and in part in southern Italy", observes Paolo Volpini, of the 'Italian Amateur Astronomers Union (Uai). A total eclipse is expected on December 14, visible only from Chile and Argentina.
Mars will return to opposition on 13 October, aligned between the Sun and Earth and therefore very bright. Jupiter precedes it in July, in opposition on the 14th, and Saturn, the 20. Among the conjunctions, for Volpini "the most beautiful will be that of Jupiter and Saturn on December 21st, preceded on December 17th by their alignment with the Moon" . The first months of 2020 will finally be dominated by Venus at sunset, which on April 5 will be in conjunction with the Pleiades star cluster.
2020 is the year of the shooting stars, in the company of Mars
2020-01-02T09:35:14.938Z
The red planet will show. Even the eclipses of Moon and Sun (ANSA)