Venus and Jupiter closest appr…

2 thoughts on “Venus and Jupiter closest appr…”

1. Hi Paul,I have noticed looking to the west of canberra, two bright stars that outshine all the others, and over the last 3 days there have not been many other stars at all, especially last night.

   Are these two stars I am looking at Jupiter and Venus and is there anything particular about their alignment at the moment>

   sincerely

   Deb Brake

2. Deb,

   Nice to hear from you. Yes, the two bright stars above the Western horizon as evening twilight ends are really Venus and Jupiter (the brighter being Venus). If you are interested, you can download an old fashioned flip book from my site at http://nightskyonline.info/?page_id=1987 to show you how much the planets move relative to each other over the period 10 – 20 March 2012. As for the question re. if there is anything unusual about this apparent alignment the short answer is no. The planets are really nowhere near each other. And both planets are often near each other (every year or so) as seen from the Earth, so that isn’t unusual. Probably the only thing that is slightly unusual is that the planets are far enough from the Sun so that they are still visible easily as twilight ends.

   That said, visually it is great watching them slowly move past each other from night to night. Monday 26 March is worth penciling in your diary as the Moon will appear as a slim crescent between the two planets then.