What to Watch for in January's Night Sky — Including 2 Meteor Showers, Multiple Planet Sightings, and More

02.01.2024 - 16:09 / travelandleisure.com

January is a traditionally milder month for stargazing — particularly compared to the year’s main event, April's solar eclipse. Yet, with two meteor showers, a plethora of planet sightings, and potential auroras, January’s night skies do warrant a few hours of missed sleep.

The month marks the predicted beginning of “solar maximum,” our current solar cycle’s roughly 11-year height of activity. This means a boom innorthern lights sightings, which theNational Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration says will likely extend from January to October 2024. Even better: this year’s solar maximum could produce the most powerful northern lights displays in decades. (Here’s how to take advantage of it, fromthe best northern lights hotels tobucket-list aurora borealis destinations.)

Even if you can’t jet set to chase the lights, January has a bounty of night-sky marvels you can see closer to home. From shooting stars to prime planet sightings, here’s what to watch for this month.

Every year, the Quadrantids meteor shower lights up the sky from around Dec. 26 through Jan. 16. This year’s peak will occur in the early morning hours of Thursday, Jan. 4, at roughly 4 a.m. ET.According to SkySafari, this pre-dawn display could see anywhere from 50 to 100 meteors per hour in the northern half of the sky. The best viewing time in the Americas will be around midnight, before the half-illuminated moon rises.

The southeastern sky will welcome a Who’s Who of interstellar favorites the morning of Jan. 9: Mars, the crescent moon, Mercury, and Venus. Our solar system’s brightest planet, Venus, will glow at the top of the quad, with the speck of Mercury to the bottom left, the moon to the bottom right, and rust-tinged Mars hovering near the horizon. Try stargazing binoculars or a telescope to enhance your view, but point them away from the eastern sky before sunrise.

Start your weekend with one of the best Mercury sightings of the year. In the pre-dawn hours of Friday, Jan. 12, Mercury will hover at its widest angle west of the sun, according to SkySafari. You can see it low in the southeastern sky, roughly 1.2 fist diameters down and left from vivid Venus. Continue admiring Mercury, our solar system’s fastest-moving planet, throughout the week.

See the first quarter moon approach Jupiter on the evenings of Jan. 17-18. According to EarthSky, the duo will hang out in the southwest sky before setting around midnight. See the Pleiades star cluster above and left of the moon. If you have a pair of binoculars handy, look for aqua-tinted Uranus halfway between the moon and Pleiades.

While the γ-Ursae Minorid meteor shower is less active than the Quadrantids, it is worth pursuing if you miss the early January display. The shower peaks