49ers, Chiefs & Punxsutawney Phil

This Superbowl Sunday coincides with Groundhog Day – the first cross-quarter day of 2020 (half-way between winter and spring). Punxsutawney Phil may be the most famous groundhog in the U.S., but he isn’t the most accurate. The four-legged creature only has a 39 percent accuracy, according to Stormfax Almanac’s data. Phil sees his shadow about 85 percent of the time (which portends six more weeks of winter)

Extreme Global Warming! – Different process altogether from Earth.

KELT-9b is a gas giant planet orbiting a star 670 light years away from earth. As a ‘hot Jupiter’, it orbits so close to its sun, it’s temperature is very very high. How high? Highest ever recorded for a planet – 7800 degrees Fahrenheit! So high that molecules of Hydrogen gas are torn apart; they can recombine on the night side of the planet.

A year is 1.5 days, tidally locked so one side NEVER sees daylight. Weird, right?

The Night Sky

Our own gas giant Jupiter pokes its head into our 6:15 am predawn sky this week in the South East along with Mars (higher up) and Antares, a little further to the right of Mars.

Saturn’s tracking a little behind Jupiter but not high enough to catch before sunrise – just yet.

Venus rules the west however at 6:00 pm, the tiny but bright Mercury is sneaking up from the west a bit each day, reaching up toward Venus.