Editor’s Note: Driving home from Kingston last night, I noticed two stars hanging like spotlights in the sky, paling all the others in comparison. But they were too bright for stars, I knew they must be planets. It turns out they’re Venus and Jupiter. Using my astrology cheat-sheet, I know Venus has something to do with love, and Jupiter with the quest for knowledge. The NASA article below describes the night sky as these two planets inch towards each other, and I’m going to pay attention to the merging of Cupid’s arrow and a very interesting textbook: sounds like the potential for really good sex coming our way on Dec. 1st. And if that doesn’t work out, you can at least snap a couple of beautiful photographs of the Venus-Jupiter-Moon conjunction. –RA
This story ends with the best sky show of the year–a spectacular three-way conjunction of Venus, Jupiter and the crescent Moon.
It begins tonight with a sunset stroll.
At the end of the day, when the horizon is turning red and the zenith is cobalt-blue, step outside and look southwest. You’ll see Venus and Jupiter beaming side-by-side through the twilight. Glittering Venus is absolutely brilliant and Jupiter is nearly as bright as Venus. Together, they’re dynamite.
Add another stick of TNT and voila!—it’s tomorrow. Go outside at the same time and look again. You’ll be amazed at how much the Venus-Jupiter gap has closed. The two planets are converging, not in the slow motion typical of heavenly phenomena, but in a headlong rush—almost a full degree (two full Moon widths) per night. As the gap shrinks, the beauty increases.
On Nov. 29th (sky map) the two planets will be less than 3 degrees apart and you’ll think to yourself “surely it can’t get any better than this.”
And then it will. On Nov. 30th (sky map) a slender 10% crescent Moon leaps up from the horizon to join the show. The delicate crescent hovering just below Venus-Jupiter will have cameras clicking around the world.
Dec. 1st (sky map) is the best night of all. The now-15% crescent Moon moves in closer to form an isosceles triangle with Venus and Jupiter as opposing vertices. The three brightest objects in the night sky will be gathered so tightly together, you can hide them all behind your thumb held at arm’s length.