Venus and Jupiter Kiss Again
You may not always notice them, but Venus, Jupiter (and some other planets) often appear in the evening sky as very bright stars. Right now, these two have just come to kiss, and they’re about the closest they’ll be in the sky before 2039 .
The phenomenon is called connection. Venus and Jupiter each go their separate ways as they revolve around the Sun, and from our vantage point on Earth, we can look and see them both at the same time. They are, of course, still 400 million miles apart, but to our eyes they will appear less than the width of a pinky nail in the sky.
Venus and Jupiter kissed for the last time in 2022 , but they weren’t as close as they are now. Over the past week or two, two planets have come close, at some point picturesquely lining up with the Moon. BBC Science Focus has collected photographs from around the world showing the two planets approaching each other.
(Again, they’re far apart but briefly aligned as they pass us – like two cars on a multi-lane road when we’re standing on the side of the road. If you lived on Venus, you wouldn’t have it. If you lived on Jupiter, you would read on JupiterHacker about the conjunction of Earth and Venus.)
Technically, last night was the closest to when the planets would appear during this conjunction. But they are still infamously close and will start to drift apart over the next few nights.
Venus and Jupiter are two of the brightest objects in the sky, so you don’t need a telescope or even binoculars to see them – just look outside tonight. The sun sets in the west, and those planets will be there. So just wait a little while after sunset and look in the direction where the sun just was. Venus will be the brighter of the two points.