A November night seems to crack open the door to the vast mechanism of the Universe. While the Earth continues its familiar path around the Sun, tiny particles left behind by comets long ago streak through its atmosphere. First, around 5 November, the Southern Taurids reach their peak. The meteors seem to fly out of the constellation Taurus, and although there are few of them per hour — about five under ideal conditions — sometimes a bright fireball flares up, illuminating the whole sky for a moment. A week later, around 12 November, it is the turn of the Northern Taurids. They too are modest in number, but their fiery trails remind us: we are moving through a cloud of cosmic dust that has existed for millions of years.
And then, in the pre-dawn hours of 17 and 18 November, after moonset, the Leonids take the stage. Under a dark sky you can see up to fifteen meteors per hour. It is best to get away from city lights, give your eyes half an hour to adjust to the darkness, and simply look up, taking in as much of the sky as possible. Each flash is a tiny speck of matter that burns up instantly upon meeting our planet. What seems random is in fact governed by strict orbital geometry: every year the Earth passes through the same dust streams.
Around the middle of the month, another spectacle joins the meteor shows. In the morning of 15 and 16 November in the southeast, shortly before sunrise, Mars and Jupiter are only 1,2 degrees apart — a little more than two full Moons placed side by side. Bright Jupiter and reddish Mars are easily distinguishable with the naked eye. In space, tens of millions of kilometres separate them, but from our vantage point they almost touch. For several days in a row you can watch them draw closer and then drift apart again. Two enormous planets moving along their independent orbits briefly align into a single picture for the earthly observer.
On these same days, an event of a different scale takes place. On 17 November, the Voyager 1 spacecraft becomes the first human-made object to move away from Earth to a distance of one light-day. A signal travelling at the speed of light now takes a full day to reach it, and another day is needed for the reply to come back. If you look in the evening toward the constellation Ophiuchus, you can at least imagine the direction in which this tiny envoy is heading, having flown through interstellar space for almost half a century. NASA invites everyone to join the “Shine Bright for Voyager’s Light-Day” campaign on this day — a simple way to mark the moment when human technology first crossed such a boundary.
And at the very end of the month, on 24 November, the sky is flooded by a supermoon. The full Moon comes closer to Earth than usual because its orbit is slightly elongated. The difference in size is barely noticeable, but the light becomes a little brighter. This is the first of three supermoons in a row — in November, December and January. When it rises above the horizon, it seems especially large — a familiar optical illusion that works with any full Moon.
All of this happens at once: tiny particles burn up in the atmosphere, the planets line up into a visible pair, a distant spacecraft crosses an invisible boundary, and the Moon passes the nearest point of its orbit. None of these events requires special equipment. A dark place, patience and the desire to raise your head are enough. The November sky reminds us: we live inside a vast, precise and incredibly beautiful system, where every movement is connected to others, and behind the familiar darkness of night a whole world unfolds, continuing to reveal itself right above us.
