{"id":21218,"date":"2025-08-25T01:15:06","date_gmt":"2025-08-25T01:15:06","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/21218\/"},"modified":"2025-08-25T01:15:06","modified_gmt":"2025-08-25T01:15:06","slug":"the-sky-today-on-sunday-august-24-virgos-double-star-porrima","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/21218\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sky Today on Sunday, August 24: Virgo\u2019s double star, Porrima"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\tBack to Article List\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\tRuddy planet Mars is just under 3\u00b0 south of the twin suns that make up the double star Porrima in Virgo this evening.\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"620\" height=\"613\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/08\/Porrima-crop.jpg\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt=\"\"\/><\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Mars exhibits a magnitude of 1.6, appearing brighter than the double star Porrima (Gamma Virginis, magnitude 2.7), positioned approximately 7\u00b0 above the western horizon one hour post-sunset.<\/li>\n<li>Telescopic observation of Mars reveals a small (5&#8243; wide) orange-red disk lacking significant detail, while Porrima displays two nearly identical blue-white components, separated by 4&#8243; and orbiting each other with a 169-year period.<\/li>\n<li>Porrima&#8217;s constituent stars possess similar magnitudes (3.8 and 3.7),  masses approximately 1.5 times solar, and temperatures around 7,100 K.<\/li>\n<li>The provided times for sunrise (6:20 AM), sunset (7:44 PM), moonrise (7:42 AM), and moonset (8:27 PM) are based on a location of 40\u00b0 N 90\u00b0 W, with the moon phase indicated as a waxing crescent (2%).<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Mars is just less than 3\u00b0 south of the gorgeous double star Porrima (Gamma Virginis) this evening. At magnitude 1.6, Mars is about a full magnitude brighter than Porrima (magnitude 2.7); the star will appear to the planet\u2019s upper right in the western sky an hour after sunset, when they are roughly 7\u00b0 high. To the pair\u2019s upper left is Spica, Virgo\u2019s 1st-magnitude alpha star.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p>Through a telescope, Mars\u2019 tiny, 5\u201d-wide disk won\u2019t show off any detail, though it will appear to glow orangey-red. Skim up to Porrima to view its two components, looking almost like a perfect pair of headlights in the dark sky. Both stars are nearly identical in brightness (magnitude 3.8 and 3.7) and color (blue-white); each is roughly 1.5 times the Sun\u2019s mass and has a temperature of about 7,100 K (compared to the Sun\u2019s temperature of nearly 5,800 K). The two stars orbit each other every 169 years and are now about 4\u201d apart on the sky.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p><strong>Sunrise:<\/strong>\u00a06:20 A.M.<br \/><strong>Sunset:<\/strong>\u00a07:44 P.M.<br \/><strong>Moonrise:<\/strong>\u00a07:42 A.M.<br \/><strong>Moonset:<\/strong>\u00a08:27 P.M.<br \/><strong>Moon Phase:<\/strong>\u00a0Waxing crescent (2%)<br \/>*Times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset are given in local time from 40\u00b0 N 90\u00b0 W. The Moon\u2019s illumination is given at 12 P.M. local time from the same location.<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center\">For a look ahead at more upcoming sky events, check out our full\u00a0<a style=\"box-sizing: inherit; background-color: transparent; color: rgb(0, 87, 138); transition-duration: 0.04s; max-width: none;\" href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/tags\/sky-this-week\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sky This Week<\/a>\u00a0column.\u00a0<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back to Article List Ruddy planet Mars is just under 3\u00b0 south of the twin suns that make&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":21219,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[77],"tags":[18,19,17,2209,133,2210],"class_list":{"0":"post-21218","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-science","8":"tag-eire","9":"tag-ie","10":"tag-ireland","11":"tag-observing","12":"tag-science","13":"tag-sky-today"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21218","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=21218"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/21218\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/21219"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=21218"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=21218"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=21218"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}