Venus, Jupiter, Moon: Come together early February 2008

William Atkins
Saturday, 26 January 2008 19:41

Science - Space

During the last days of January and the first days of February the two brightest planets seen on Earth will appear close together in the dawn twilight of the southeast sky, and the waning crescent Moon will drop by, too.                

The early morning of Friday, February 1, 2008, will be the time when Venus, the closest planet to Earth, and Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, appear the closest together in the night sky.

Both planets are rising out of the east-southeast horizon about two hours before sunrise.

The Venus-Jupiter conjunction will be located above the constellation Sagittarius and to the right of the globular cluster M22—both visible to the naked eye given clear and dark sky conditions.

As January ends, the two brilliant planets get closer together in their paths across the sky. On the morning of February 1st, they will only be about one-half degree apart, only about the width of the Moon (as seen by us on Earth’s surface). Jupiter will be shining with a magnitude of -1.9 and Venus will be shining with a magnitude of -4.0, making Venus the brightest planet seen from Earth.

After February 1st, they will appear to move apart as they orbit around the Sun; however, as they do this the Moon will join them.

On January 30th the waning crescent Moon will be high in the south at sunrise but will shift gradually to the east until it is in the same region of the sky as the two planets.

Then, about 45 minutes before sunrise, Monday, February 4, the Moon, Venus, and Jupiter will be in an apparent triangular shaped position. The two planets will be about three degrees apart and the brightest object in the night sky, the Moon, will be about five degrees below the two planets.

Although these three bodies appear close together, their distances away from the Earth is quite different. The Moon is only about 247,000 miles (400,000 kilometers) away, while Venus is about 126 million miles (200 million kilometers) away--over 500 times further away from the Earth than the Moon.

Gas-giant Jupiter is even further away, at about 560 million miles (900 million kilometers) from Earth--about 4.5 times further away from Earth than Venus and over 2,250 times further away from Earth than the Moon.