"This month opens with a stunning view of Venus suspended beneath a crescent Moon in evening twilight. Mars and Uranus join these brilliant objects in the western sky after sunset, but the more distant worlds pale in comparison. The waxing Moon visits Aldebaran on March 4, blocking the 1st-magnitude star from view across most of the United States. And Mercury begins its best evening appearance of 2017 in late March.

Rises at 3:53 a.m. on the 1st and about 2:54 a.m. by month's end. Pluto is visible in the early morning skies before sunrise. Pluto is in the constellation of Sagittarius shining at magnitude 14.2.

"By the end of March, Comet 41P/Tuttle-Giacobini-Kresak should be a decent sight through binoculars and might even grow bright enough to see with the naked eye.
…
The comet swings within 13 million miles of Earth in late March, its closest approach yet. And it treks through Ursa Major, so it rides high in the sky for much of the night. The best views should come late in the month when the Moon is out of the sky. The comet then lies near the bowl of the Big Dipper, passing within 1° of magnitude 1.8 Dubhe (Alpha [α] Ursae Majoris) on the evening of the 27th. If predictions hold, it could reach 5th or 6th magnitude.
…
Astroimagers should keep an eye on Comet PANSTARRS (C/2015 ER61) as well. On March 1, the 7th-magnitude object sits between the Lagoon and Trifid nebulae in Sagittarius. And on the 8th, it passes 1° north of the bright globular cluster M22." Astronomy Magazine, March 2017, p. 42.

(From west to east)

• Pallas is in conjunction with the Sun on the 14th.
• Vesta is stationary on the 6th in the constellation of Gemini.
• Eunomia is in the constellation of Sextans.
• Amphitrite is at opposition on the 3rd in the constellation of Leo.
• Daphne is at opposition on the 8th in the constellation of Leo.

• Information about the Minor Planets can be found at the Minor Planet Observer website.

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"NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed the first known system of seven Earth-size planets around a single star. Three of these planets are firmly located in the habitable zone, the area around the parent star where a rocky planet is most likely to have liquid water.

The discovery sets a new record for greatest number of habitable-zone planets found around a single star outside our solar system. All of these seven planets could have liquid water -- key to life as we know it -- under the right atmospheric conditions, but the chances are highest with the three in the habitable zone.
…
This exoplanet system is called TRAPPIST-1, named for The Transiting Planets and Planetesimals Small Telescope (TRAPPIST) in Chile. In May 2016, researchers using TRAPPIST announced they had discovered three planets in the system. Assisted by several ground-based telescopes, including the European Southern Observatory's Very Large Telescope, Spitzer confirmed the existence of two of these planets and discovered five additional ones, increasing the number of known planets in the system to seven."

For more information about Spitzer, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/spitzer

For more information on the TRAPPIST-1 system, visit:

https://exoplanets.nasa.gov/trappist1

For more information on exoplanets, visit:

http://www.nasa.gov/exoplanets

FREE TRAPPIST-1 Exoplanet Poster "NASA's Spitzer Space Telescope has revealed the first known system of seven Earth-size planets around a single star. Three of these planets are firmly located in the habitable zone, the area around the parent star where a rocky planet is most likely to have liquid water." p> Learn more about this exoplanet

Download poster

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"NASA's Juno mission to Jupiter, which has been in orbit around the gas giant since July 4, 2016, will remain in its current 53-day orbit for the remainder of the mission. This will allow Juno to accomplish its science goals, while avoiding the risk of a previously-planned engine firing that would have reduced the spacecraft's orbital period to 14 days.

"Juno is healthy, its science instruments are fully operational, and the data and images we've received are nothing short of amazing," said Thomas Zurbuchen, associate administrator for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington. "The decision to forego the burn is the right thing to do -- preserving a valuable asset so that Juno can continue its exciting journey of discovery."

Juno has successfully orbited Jupiter four times since arriving at the giant planet, with the most recent orbit completed on Feb. 2. Its next close flyby of Jupiter will be March 27."

NASA's JunoCam website can be visited at:

https://www.missionjuno.swri.edu/junocam

More information on the Juno mission is available at: http://www.nasa.gov/juno

The public can follow the mission on Facebook and Twitter at:
http://www.facebook.com/NASAJuno
http://www.twitter.com/NASAJuno

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"'Saturn plus its moons are like the sun plus the planets,' said Linda Spilker, Cassini's project scientist. Saturn's moons also orbit Saturn in generally the same plane and in the same direction as one another* like planets in a solar system. "And Saturn's ring disk is like going back in time to before the planets formed," Spilker said."

The Cassini-Huygens mission is a cooperative project of NASA, the European Space Agency and the Italian Space Agency. JPL, a division of the California Institute of Technology, Pasadena, manages the mission for NASA's Science Mission Directorate in Washington.

Raw images are available at http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov/photos/raw/index.cfm.

More information about Cassini is available at the following sites:
http://saturn.jpl.nasa.gov

http://www.nasa.gov/cassini

Cassini Imaging Team - Archives from Dec. 2015 and earlier.

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"The International Astronomical Union (IAU) -- the internationally recognized authority for naming celestial bodies and their surface features -- has approved themes submitted by NASA's New Horizons team for naming surface features on Pluto and its moons.

In 2015, NASA's New Horizons spacecraft delivered the first close-up views of Pluto and its five moons -- amazing images of distant and surprisingly complex worlds, showing a vast nitrogen glacier as well as ice mountains, canyons, cliffs, craters and more. The IAU's action clears the way for the mission team to propose formal names for dozens of individual surface features."

New Horizons gallery

Find New Horizons in the iTunes App Store here.

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"NASA's Dawn mission has found evidence for organic material on Ceres, a dwarf planet and the largest body in the main asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter. Scientists using the spacecraft's visible and infrared mapping spectrometer (VIR) detected the material in and around a northern-hemisphere crater called Ernutet. Organic molecules are interesting to scientists because they are necessary, though not sufficient, components of life on Earth." A gallery of images can be found online.

"After more than 10 years in operation, the MErcury Surface, Space ENvironment, GEochemistry, and Ranging (MESSENGER) spacecraft impacted the surface of Mercury on April 30, 2015, at a speed of more than 3.91 kilometers per second (8,750 miles per hour), marking the end of operations for the hugely successful Mercury orbiter. At the MESSENGER Nears End of Operations media and public event, scientists and engineers discussed the mission's accomplishments, providing the top 10 scientific discoveries, as well as the technological innovations that grew out of the mission."

The MESSENGER app is available for download from iTunes.

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"After investigating the upper atmosphere of the Red Planet for a full Martian year, MAVEN has determined that escaping water does not always go gently into space.

Sophisticated measurements made by a suite of instruments on the MAVEN spacecraft revealed the ups and downs of hydrogen escape-and therefore water loss. The escape rate peaked when Mars was at its closest point to the sun and dropped off when the planet was farthest from the sun. The rate of loss varied dramatically overall, with 10 times more hydrogen escaping at the maximum."

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"On Mars, wind rules. Wind has been shaping the Red Planet's landscapes for billions of years and continues to do so today. Studies using both a NASA orbiter and a rover reveal its effects on scales grand to tiny on the strangely structured landscapes within Gale Crater.

NASA's Curiosity Mars rover, on the lower slope of Mount Sharp -- a layered mountain inside the crater -- has begun a second campaign of investigating active sand dunes on the mountain's northwestern flank. The rover also has been observing whirlwinds carrying dust and checking how far the wind moves grains of sand in a single day's time."

To follow the Mars Curiosity rover and NASA on Foursquare, visit: http://www.foursquare.com/MarsCuriosity and http://www.foursquare.com/NASA

For information about NASA's partnership with Foursquare, visit:http://www.nasa.gov/connect/foursquare.html.

  Mars Rover Landing - Free for the Xbox (requires Kinect)

Landing sites

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"At an international workshop this week about where NASA's next Mars rover should land, most of the information comes from a prolific spacecraft that's been orbiting Mars since 2006.

Observations by NASA's Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter (MRO) provide the basis for evaluating eight candidate landing sites for the Mars 2020 rover mission. The landing site workshop this week in Monrovia, California, will narrow the Mars 2020 candidate list to four or fewer sites. MRO observations have been used to identify, characterize and certify past landing sites and are also in use to assess possible sites for future human-crew missions."

MARS RECONNAISSANCE ORBITER HIRISE IMAGES
All of the HiRISE images are archived here.

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"MARS ODYSSEY MISSION STATUS REPORT
UPDATED Jan. 4, 2017, at 2 p.m. PST
NASA's Mars Odyssey spacecraft has resumed full service following recovery after entering a safe standby mode on Dec. 26, 2016.

The orbiter resumed communication relay assistance to Mars rovers on Dec. 30, 2016. Science observations of Mars by instruments on Odyssey resumed on Jan. 3, 2017, with its Thermal Emission Imaging System, and on the next day with its High Energy Neutral Spectrometer and the Neutron Spectrometer."

Video - What might it look like if you were walking around on Mars?

See the Mars As Art Gallery

Daily Mars Odyssey THEMIS Images
Can be found at the Thermal Emission Imaging System (THEMIS) website.

The Odyssey data are available through a new online access system established by the Planetary Data System.