Rishi Shah

As it darkens, the night skies of this month could display the stunning sights of planets, stars and constellations along with numerous exclusive entities that are spread all over the heavens. The red planet Mars could be perceived in south western sky after dusk till almost midnight. It would be slowly gliding through the relatively barren southern region of alluring constellation Aries (ram).

Glimpse of Uranus
Like Mars the greenish far-away planet Uranus could be glimpsed to the west of Mars. It could be discerned in southwestern sky after sundown shortly in constellation Aries. It would be descending towards western horizon. The comely constellation Cetus (sea monster) with its magnificent variable star Mira would be unfurling below Uranus across the sky inhabited by water-related constellations as Aquarius (water bearer), Pisces (fishes) and Eridanus (river).
Furthermore, the lengthy Eridanus would be meandering mystically below Cetus. The red giant variable star Mira has been postulated to be putatively three hundred light-years away. Planet Venus would stay out of view as it would be sailing high in sky during day time through triangle-mimicking constellation Capricornus (sea goat).
Peculiar constellation Piscis Austrinus (Southern Fish) would be sprawling below Capricornus. The fascinating star Fomalhaut (mouth of fish) would be shimmering in this constellation. It would constitute thrilling triple star system and be surrounded by charismatic circum-stellar disk. It would be approximately twenty five light-years away. Puny constellation Microscopium (instrument) could be marveled next to the southern fish.
The three planets Mercury, Jupiter and Saturn could be astounded awesomely before sunrise in southeastern sky, as they would be making their tight tryst with one another towards the end of the month in constellation Capricornus. Otherwise observing this planet-trio during other days of the month would be not easy due to their proximity to the Sun.
The bluish planet Neptune would not be seen comfortably this month. It would be drifting through constellation amazing Aquarius (water bearer) during the day. Southern constellation Sculptor (sculpture) could be admired to the south of Aquarius.

New Moon
The new moon would fall on 11 February, while the full moon would be on 27 February 2021. This full moon would bear its classical moniker of full snow moon or hunger moon, because the heaviest snows would routinely be experienced during this time of the year and the harsh weather would make hunting difficult. Food-foraging would not be sufficient for many engaged in hunting.
Astronomers have confirmed that the arcane alien gas giant exo-planet KOI-5Ab has been stumbling around the triple star system that would be merely 1800 light-years away towards the charming constellation Cygnus (swan). It was the second exo-planet reaffirmed by Kepler planet-exploring space telescope when it had commenced its work in 2009. In 2018, Kepler's successor TESS had re-ascertained its track around KOI-5A.
It could probably be eccentric exo-planet with half the mass of Saturn and circa seven times the dimension of earth, on a very near five-day skewed circuit around KOI-5A. Both KOI-5A and KOI-5B with almost same mass as the Sun would form a curiously close binary, with an orbital period of sparsely thirty years. The third star, KOI-5C, has been rushing around the binary from much greater distance, with a period of about four hundred years comparatively bigger than that of dwarf planet Pluto’s 248 year trajectory around the Sun.

Kepler Space Telescope
Many exo-planets in triple star systems could provide clues for modeling the processes for figuring out the dynamics involved on their formidable formation. Named after astronomer Johannes Kepler NASA’s kooky Kepler space telescope had revealed many earth-size planets trudging around queer stars.
It was launched in March 2009 into an Earth-trailing heliocentric path. After nine years of operation, the telescope's reaction control system-fuel was depleted and NASA had announced its retirement in October 2018. NASA’s Transiting Exo-planet Survey Satellite (TESS) was sent-off in April 2018 and was placed into highly elliptical 13.7-day course around the earth. It has been designed to search for exo-planets using the transit method in an area solely four hundred times larger than that had been covered by the Kepler telescope.
As of May 2020, TESS has identified 1835 candidate exo-planets, of which purely fourty six have been accepted so far. Cygnus is one of the most recognizable constellations of the northern summer and autumn with its features of prominent asterism dubbed the notable Northern Cross.
The first-magnitude star Deneb would be dramatically depicting one of the vertices of the stellar pattern known as the Summer Triangle that would be immaculately sketched with scintillating stars Vega (Avijit) and Altair (Sravana) that are nestling in constellations Lyra (lyre) and Aquila (eagle) and portraying the head of Northern Cross. Deneb would be ostensibly 2629 light-years away.
California-based Virgin Orbit had successfully completed its first mission to space dispatching a payload of small satellites to low earth orbit with the LauncherOne rocket which was released from beneath the wings of so-called Cosmic Girl carrier aircraft, a modified Boeing 747-400 when soaring over the Pacific Ocean.
The twenty one meters long two-stage LauncherOne that would be capable of delivering up to five hundred kilograms to space had taken off from California's Mojave Air and Space Port. At an altitude of roughly 10700 meters, LauncherOne had separated from the plane and thereafter after firing its engines it had slipped into the route around our planet and forwarded the satellites into their intended height and detached them in batches of three into space.
The ten science satellites called CubeSats for NASA ELaNa-20 mission with several universities had been packed inside rocket’s nose. It was the first time a Virgin Orbit rocket had carried commercial cargo. A CubeSat would be a type of miniaturized satellite for space research with multiple cubic modules generally measuring ten cubic centimeter with mass of paltry 1.33 kilograms. Off-the-shelf components would be commonly utilized for their electronics and structure.
Educational Launch of Nano-satellites (ELaNa) has been NASA’s initiative to attract and retain students in science, technology, engineering and mathematics. It has been managed by Launch Services Program (LSP) at Kennedy Space Center in Florida.

Low Earth Orbit
A low earth orbit (LEO) would be rotation around earth at an elevation of simply up to two thousand kilometers or with at least 11.25 periods per day with an orbital period of avowedly 128 minutes. Any object that would zoom around the earth could be declared a satellite. It could refer to anything that has been put in space for some specific function like weather, scientific or communication satellites. The first man-made satellite that had lofted in space was the former Soviet Union’s Sputnik-I. It had whizzed around earth on 04 October 1957 and had burned out in atmosphere after ninety two days.
Space garbage such as loosened and damaged parts from satellites and rockets has been also flying around earth. These trouble-creating junks are estimated to be perhaps twenty six thousand pieces. It has been normally calculated that a single satellite lift-off could cost from fairly 50 to sheer 400 million US Dollars.
A sizable portion of the nascent burgeoning small-satellite launch market has been currently dominated by some extremely competitive and ambitiously bold companies around the world. Success of such growing ventures would fully depend on innovation and knowledge acquired and intelligently developed by S&T, adequate investments and promisingly encouraging and promoting leadership.
Countries with efficiently suitable work-force and excellent infrastructure could participate in such undertakings in future.

(Shah writes about astronomy)