Yuri Milner, a billionaire from Russia, announced his proposal on developing a lightweight spacecraft capable of journeying about 40 trillion km through space toward Alpha Centauri, our nearest star and it's planets, at a conference held in New York City on April 12, 2016. He invested another $100 million toward the Breakthrough Starshoot project to prove such an undertaking is possible, and many famous scientists, including Stephen Hawking, have shown their support for the idea.

The spacecraft, so-called nanocraft, should weigh less than one gram, and have a solar sail. The strong lasers, which would be waiting in our planet's orbit would give the nanocraft an acceleration of 60 000 g over a couple of minutes. This would enable the craft to reach the nearest star in about 20 years at, approximately, 20% the speed of light.

“It’s the first time in human history that we can do more than just stare at the stars,” Milner said.

Early on March 9, 2016 (UTC), the Moon will position itself right in front of the Sun and create a total solar eclipse for viewers in parts of central Indonesia and the Pacific Ocean. South and East Asia, Japan, Korea, Australia, Hawaii and Alaska will get to see varying degrees of the almost equally stunning partial solar eclipse. The rest of us can enjoy it right here on The Watchers, courtesy of Slooh Community Observatory and NASA.

NASA, in partnership with the Exploratorium Science Center in San Francisco, will host live coverage of the eclipse originating from Woleai Island in Micronesia and offer opportunities to talk with solar scientists.

NASA Television (video below) will begin coverage at 01:00 UTC on March 9 (20:00 EST on March 8). Twitter, Google+ and Facebook users will be able to join the conversation and ask questions using the hashtag #eclipse2016. The NASA Twitter account for the eclipse is @NASASunEarth.

There will be, at least, two special celestial events during March 2016 - total solar eclipse at 01:58 UTC on March 9 and penumbral lunar eclipse at 11:48 UTC on March 23.

March Equinox, the first day of spring (vernal equinox) in the northern hemisphere and the first day of fall (autumnal equinox) in the southern hemisphere is at 04:24 on March 20.

The best time of the year to observe faint objects such as galaxies and star clusters because there is no moonlight to interfere - new moon - is on March 9. Over the coming days,  the Moon will become visible in the late afternoon and dusk sky as a waxing crescent, setting an hour later each evening. By the first quarter, in a week's time, it will be visible until around midnight. 

• March 1 - Moon at last quarter - 23:12 UTC. The Moon will reach its last quarter phase at 23:12 UTC on March 1. Moon's orbital motion carries it around the Earth once every four weeks, and, as a result, its phases cycle from new moon, through the first quarter, full moon and last quarter, back to the new moon once every 29.5 days. This motion also means that the Moon travels more than 12° across the sky from one night to the next, causing it to rise and set nearly an hour later each day.