There will be a great celestial hug this week, more formally known as a conjunction. The planets Venus and Jupiter will appear very close in our sky on Friday, less than a degree apart in the sky, or roughly the diameter of the full moon. You can easily see them with the naked eye, and they will be the brightest starlike objects in the sky.
All this week from about 6:30 to 7 a.m., before morning twilight gets too bright, you can watch Jupiter and Venus get closer and closer in the southeastern sky. The only problem is that the pair of planets will still be low in the sky, not more than 10 degrees above the horizon.
You may need to go to a spot like a hilltop or some other place where you can clearly see the southeastern horizon without trees in the way. Believe me, it will be worth it!
By Monday morning Jupiter and Venus will be 4 degrees apart in the sky, roughly the width of half of your fist at arm’s length. Venus will be on the upper right and Jupiter will be to the lower left. Venus will definitely be the brighter of the two. Tuesday morning they will only be 3 degrees apart, Wednesday only 2 degrees apart, Thursday only 1 degree apart. On Friday, the culmination of the conjunction, they will be just half a degree apart.
Let’s hope it’s clear enough every morning to see Jupiter and Venus, because watching their progress toward each other is going to be as much fun as seeing their closest conjunction on Friday morning. Even if we can’t see their closest approach Friday because of ever-lovin’ clouds, there will still be a close celestial hug Groundhog Day weekend, Feb. 2 and 3.
Even though they seem close together in the sky, Jupiter and Venus are nowhere near each other. They just happen to be in the same line of sight. The Earth and all the rest of the planets orbit the sun in nearly the same plane, so conjunctions like these happen from time to time. I’d say we get a good planetary conjunction like this every 18 to 24 months.
Venus is the brighter of the two planets, because it’s the nearer of the two to Earth, just over 126 million miles away. The poisonous sulfuric acid cloud cover also adds to Venus’s brightness and reflects a lot of the sun’s light.
Jupiter is a heck of a lot farther away, over 560 million miles, but it still shines brightly in the sky. That’s because it’s the absolute giant of our solar system, 88,000 miles in diameter compared with Venus’s paltry 7,700 mile girth. In fact, if Jupiter were a hollow sphere you could fit more than 1,000 Venuses inside.
Telescopically there really isn’t too much to see looking at the conjunction. Both planets are so close to the horizon that it forces us to have to visually dig through more of Earth’s blurring atmosphere. However, you may still see some of Jupiter’s cloud bands that stripe the planet, along with up to four of its largest moons (They look like tiny little stars on either side of Jupiter).
Later this summer, starting around the July 4, will be the time you want to point a telescope at Jupiter. By then it’ll be visible all night long, and we’ll be less than 390 million miles away.
In the meantime, have some fun during the Venus-Jupiter conjunction this Friday. Hold your thumb out at arm’s length and your thumbnail will cover two worlds. How often can you do that?
Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis and is author of the book, “Washington Starwatch”, available at bookstores and at his Web site www.lynchandthestars.com.
The Everett Astronomical Society welcomes new members and puts on public star parties. Their Web site is members.tripod.com/everett_astronomy.
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