Dear Sir,
I live on the top community at Carmenes del Mar in Herradura. We have no cracks or damage on our community. I tell you this so you can plot my location. About 3/4 of the way up Cero Gordo.
I am sure that amongst your readers, you will have an amateur astronomer. I am not a star watcher but I could not help noticing the following :-
Looking at the night sky before Christmas, I could see millions of stars. Over the past two or three months I only see one star. From my location, is rises above Almuñécar at 7-20 It has an elevation of about 20 degrees.
By midnight it has travelled west and risen to about 45 degrees. It continues to rise and travel west and my 1am it is directly over Cero Gordo.
I know the star is not travelling; it is earth rotating. However, I still find it frustrating. Can anybody tell me, is it a star? If so, its name? Why is it brighter that any other star in the sky?
Warmest regards,
Peter J H Simpson.
Dear Peter,
My personal thoughts on the matter are that it is either a satellite or a planet, as stars do no vary their position in relation to the others around them.
The word planet comes from Greek and means “wanderer.” This is because ancient Greek astronomers noticed that whereas other stars didn’t vary their position within a given constellation, these “wandering stars” did. Today we know that “planets” are not stars but astral bodies much like our own planet.
However, what you describe is probably moving a bit fast to be a planet and is more likely to be a low-orbit satellite; high-orbit ones are geo-stationary; i.e., they don’t move in relation to the ground below.
Anyway, I am sure that we have some astronomy buffs amongst our readers that can answer your question much better than I can.
As a concluding point, I have an app on my phone called “Night Sky” which is amazing – you just need to point your smart phone at a given heavenly body and it will tell you its name; be it a planet, star or even satellite – you can even identify the International Space Station with it.
Regards
Martin Myall