Valentina Tereshkova was the cosmonaut for that three-day mission. Tereshkova married the year after her flight and shifted her career to government service. Five a.m. is probably too late to see the stars of the constellations behind these near neighbors of Earth, but Venus and the moon are presently straddling the border between Aries, Pisces and Cetus. Venus is still gracing the eastern horizon at about 5 a.m., but the moon has moved on towards Saturn. Saturn is much dimmer and much lower than Venus, but it still outshines any of the stars in its vicinity.
Tomorrow is a busy day in the solar system.
Although the sun is below the Kansas horizon at this hour, we know that the sun is passing from Taurus to Gemini and that the moon and Jupiter are not far off. Having the sun so far north means that we have the maximum number of daylight hours and the highest solar altitudes at noon, nearly 75 degrees above the southern horizon at Kansas' latitude. Kansans cherish the fact that the ninth planet was discovered by one of our own, Clyde W. Tombaugh, on Feb. 18, 1930. Fortunately, Pluto has been closer than average over the past few decades, one of the circumstances that made it possible for James Christy to discover Pluto's little moon on this date in 1978. Studies of Charon's motion around Pluto have enabled astronomers to determine Pluto's mass and the added bonus of eclipses has made possible the determination of the diameters of both small, icy worlds.