What can you see in the February sky? Stars and planets with distinct red and blue colors, like Mars and Sirius. February also brings some pretty pairings with Venus, Saturn and the Moon, and the best opportunity of the year to catch a glimpse of Mercury. We also point out locations in the sky of several destinations recently visited by NASA spacecraft.

Download still images from this video, along with the transcript and the video itself at https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/resource… Presenter voice: Jennifer Corbilla, NASA-JPL

—About asteroid Bennu— An ancient relic of our solar system’s early days, Bennu has seen more than 4.5 billion years of history. Scientists think that within 10 million years of our solar system’s formation, Bennu’s present-day composition was already established. Bennu likely broke off from a much larger carbon-rich asteroid about 700 million to 2 billion years ago. It likely formed in the Main Asteroid Belt between Mars and Jupiter, and has drifted much closer to Earth since then. Because its materials are so old, Bennu may contain organic molecules similar to those that could have been involved with the start of life on Earth. More about Bennu: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/asteroid…

—About Kuiper Belt object 2014 MU69— Billions of miles away, you can find some of the best-preserved fossils of the beginnings of our solar system. 2014 MU69, also known as Ultima Thule, is one of those relics that has been in a deep freeze all this time, with its orbit virtually unchanged over 4.5 billion years. Circling the Sun in a distant region of icy, rocky bodies called the Kuiper Belt, MU69 may represent the building blocks of Pluto and other planet-like worlds beyond Neptune. More about MU69: https://solarsystem.nasa.gov/solar-sy…