What's Happening in Space: January 2025
- 2nd Jan 2025
- Author: Dhara Patel
A summary of space events through the month
Happy New Year! In our first blog post of 2025, Dhara Patel (our resident Space Expert) will be sharing her round-up of some notable space and science events coming up in the weeks ahead...
Throughout January – spot the International Space Station
There may be sightings throughout January to spot the International Space Station moving across the sky – use NASA’s Spot the Station to find out when and where to spot the largest artificial satellite overhead. You may be able to spot the station on the early morning of 2nd January, or possibly during the latter half of the month.
3rd January – Moon and Venus close in the sky
Look for Venus close to the Moon during the late afternoon of 3rd January in the south-western sky. The waxing crescent moon will be in conjunction (sharing the same right ascension – coordinate) with Venus around the same time. They should be visible as the sky begins to darken, up until around 20:00 when they’ll set below the horizon. They’ll be visible to the naked eye, and through a pair of binoculars at close approach. Clear views without tall buildings and trees will help you spot them more easily especially when they’re lower on the horizon. Find out more about conjunctions in our astronomical phenomena blog written by David Southworth in the National Space Centre's Education Team.
3rd – 4th January – peak of the Quadrantid meteor shower
It’s one of the major showers of the year, with up to 110 meteors per hour at its peak, produced by material from asteroid 2003 EH1. The meteors will radiate from the northern tip of the constellation of Boötes (in the northwest as the Sun sets and the skies darken) but can appear anywhere in the sky. Peaking on the night of the 3rd and morning of the 4th, the waxing crescent moon situated in the constellation of Aquarius will set in the early evening providing ideal viewing conditions this year. The radiant will continue to rise higher into the sky during the early morning of the 4th, so it might be best to head out to a dark location and observe in the predawn hours when the radiant will be high in the east. The Quadrantids peak only lasts a few hours due to the shower's thin stream of particles and the fact that the Earth crosses the stream at a perpendicular angle. The shower is known for its blue meteors with fine trains and also its bright fireballs. Find out more in the National Space Centre's Quadrantid meteor shower 2025 blog.
4th January – Lunar occultation of Saturn
During the early evening of 4th January in the south-western sky, the Moon will occult or pass in front of Saturn, blocking it from view for a short while. It will disappear behind the eastern edge around 17:20 and reappear from the western edge of the Moon around 18:30. They’ll be visible to the naked eye, and you can catch the spectacle with a pair of binoculars of telescope too. Check out the astronomical phenomena blog linked above to find out more about occultations.
4th January –Earth will be at perihelion (its closest distance to the Sun in its orbit)
Since the intensity of light changes as the square of the distance, sunlight reaching the Earth at perihelion (closest distance to the Sun) is about 6.5% brighter than sunlight reaching the Earth at aphelion (furthest distance from the Sun which occurred last July). But we still experience colder temperatures on average in the northern hemisphere winter because of the axial tilt of the Earth – we are tilted away from the Sun at this time of year. The angle of incoming sunlight has a greater effect on the average temperature than the relatively small change in distance caused by the elliptical orbit of the Earth around the Sun.
Check out our illustrations about the seasons and Earth’s orbit created by Michelle Barnett – one of our graphic designers!
6th January – New Glenn debut launch
New Glenn is a heavy-lift rocket developed by Blue Origin. It is named after NASA astronaut John Glenn, the first American astronaut to orbit Earth and has been designed to deliver larger payloads to orbit. This maiden flight of the New Glenn launch vehicle will be carrying the prototype Blue Ring payload tug and payload hoisting platform (a spacecraft platform capable of refuelling, transporting, and hosting satellites). Additionally, this mission will serve as New Glenn's first National Security Space Launch certification flight. Blue Origin will attempt to land the first stage booster on its sea-based landing platform, ‘Jacklyn.’ After many delays in its launch, it is now scheduled to take off at 4:30 GMT on 6th January from Cape Canaveral, Florida, USA. New Glenn will help reduce the cost of space exploration and improve access to space. Find out more in our New Glenn – Blue Origin’s flagship launch vehicle blog written by Ed Turner in the National Space Centre's Education team.
10th January – Moon and Jupiter close in the sky
Look for Jupiter close to the Moon during the late night of 10th January in the southern sky. The waxing gibbous moon will be in conjunction (sharing the same right ascension – coordinate) with Jupiter around the same time. They should be visible from sunset as the sky begins to darken, up until the early hours of the following morning when they set below the horizon. They’ll be visible to the naked eye and clear views without tall buildings and trees will help you spot them more easily especially when they’re lower on the horizon. Check out the astronomical phenomena blog linked above to find out more about close approaches and conjunctions.
10th January – SpaceX Starship – Test Flight 7
Starship is made up of the Super Heavy booster – a first stage rocket with 33 of SpaceX’s raptor engines, and on top of that sits the upper stage - rather confusingly also called Starship (which hosts 6 engines). And when its fully developed, this launch vehicle will be a completely reusable rocket – both first and second stages. A modified version of Starship is currently planned to land astronauts on the Moon with the Artemis 3 mission. In this seventh test flight, due to take off at 22:00 GMT from SpaceX’s launch facility, Starbase, in Boca Chica, Texas, United States, SpaceX plan to test a new, upgraded version of the upper stage of the rocket – the Block 2 starship vehicle (with the current Block 1 Super Heavy booster vehicle underneath). It will again be a suborbital flight, with an attempt to catch the booster with the "chopstick" arms of Starbase's giant launch tower and a soft landing in the ocean of the upper stage Starship vehicle. The plan going forward is to develop an upgraded Block 2 Super Heavy booster vehicle too.
Find out more about Starship and SpaceX’s other rocketry achievements in our SpaceX – the world’s rocket giant blog by Ed Turner in the National Space Centre's Education team.
13th January – full moon (22:26)
Known as the Wolf moon (according to the old Farmers’ Almanac), this full moon is named after the hungry wolves heard howling in the dead of winter. Check out the Full Moon: Full Facts blog written by Mike Darch in the National Space Centre's Education team to find out more.
16th January – Mars at opposition
Because Earth and Mars have different orbits and orbital speeds, the distance between them is constantly changing. On 16th January, appearing in the constellation of Gemini (close to the bright star Pollux), Mars will be on the opposite side of the Earth compared to the Sun so it will roughly be at its closest approach to Earth, and its face will be fully illuminated by the Sun. The Sun, Earth, and Mars will be in ‘syzygy’ or a roughly straight-line configuration. At the time of opposition, Mars will be brighter than at any other time of the year and will be up all night long making it the best time to view and photograph the planet. Catch the spectacle from the late evening on 16th January – it will rise in the east and set in the west the following morning so ideally look towards the south around midnight. It will be visible to the naked eye but a pair of binoculars or a telescope will help you see more details. Check out the astronomical phenomena blog above to find out more about oppositions and other astronomical phenomena.
14th January – Moon and Mars close in the sky
Look for Jupiter close to the Moon during the hours after midnight on 14th January in the south-western sky. The waning gibbous moon will be in conjunction (sharing the same right ascension – coordinate) with Mars around the same time. They should be visible from sunset as the sky begins to darken, up until dawn the following morning. They’ll be visible to the naked eye, and through a pair of binoculars / telescope at close approach. Clear views without tall buildings and trees will help you spot them more easily especially when they’re lower on the horizon. Check out the astronomical phenomena blog linked above to find out more about close approaches and conjunctions.
18th January – Venus and Saturn close in the sky
Look for Venus close to Saturn in the south-western sky after sunset on 18th January. They should be visible from as the sky begins to darken, up until around 20:00 when they set below the horizon. They’ll be visible to the naked eye, and through a pair of binoculars at close approach. Clear views without tall buildings and trees will help you spot them more easily especially when they’re lower on the horizon. Check out the astronomical phenomena blog linked above to find out more about close approaches.
29th January new moon (12:35)
The new moon will occur in the constellation of Capricornus. The lack of moonlight interference provides a great time to try and view deep sky objects (especially with the aid of binoculars and telescopes). We have a blog on Moon phases written by Mike Darch in the National Space Centre's Education team.
January (TBC) – Blue Ghost and Hakuto R-2 launch
Hitching a ride together (on a SpaceX Falcon 9 rocket), two commercial Moon missions are set to take off from Kennedy Space Center, Florida, USA, in January.
- Firefly Aerospace’s first Blue Ghost mission, named Ghost Riders in the Sky, is part of NASA’s Commercial Lunar Payload Services (CLPS) initiative. This mission will take 10 science and technology instruments to the Moon’s surface and operate for a complete lunar day (about 14 Earth days). It will capture imagery of the lunar sunset and provide important information on how lunar regolith reacts to solar influences during lunar dusk conditions. The lander will then operate for several hours into the lunar night before it freezes.
- HAKUTO-R is a commercial lunar exploration program operated by ispace and includes their first two lunar missions. The first mission attempted a landing in April 2023 but unfortunately communication with the lander was lost during the final seconds of its descent. This second mission will perform a soft landing on the Moon with its Resilience lander and then deploy a micro rover manufactured by the company. This rover is expected to collect lunar regolith as part of a contract with NASA signed in 2020 in which companies will collect materials on the Moon and then transfer ownership "in situ" to the agency.