Watch as the two brightest planets approach within a Moon’s width of each other.
On March 14, 2012, at 8:28 p.m. local time, Venus blazed brightly with Jupiter to its lower left. The photographer took this shot from Dustin, England, when the two planets were 3° apart.
Credit: Jamie Cooper
- Venus and Jupiter exhibit a close planetary conjunction in the pre-dawn eastern sky during early August.
- The apparent angular separation between the two planets decreases progressively from 5.5° on August 6th to a minimum of 0.5° on August 12th.
- The conjunction’s closest approach on August 12th places Venus and Jupiter within approximately half the apparent diameter of a Full Moon.
- Following August 12th, the angular separation between Venus and Jupiter increases.
If you head out before sunrise (say, about 5 a.m. local time) and look eastward during the next few days, you’ll see planetary motion in action. Venus, blazing at magnitude –4.0, and Jupiter, no slouch itself shining at magnitude –2.0, are getting closer each day.
Tomorrow morning (which is Wednesday, August 6 as I write this), the pair will be separated by 5.5°. As far as the sky is concerned, that’s not a wide margin, but it’s nothing to write home about. But wait two days and head out on the morning of Friday the 8th. Now the planets are 3.7° apart. Not bad. Are you photographing them yet?
Let another two days go by. On Sunday morning, August 10, Venus will stand only 2° from Jupiter. To get some idea how close this is, the Full Moon has an apparent diameter of ½°, and Orion’s Belt is 2¾° long.
And it keeps getting better. On the 11th, the separation has been cut in half to 1.1°. But the morning not to miss is Tuesday, August 12. On that date, Venus and Jupiter will be only ½° apart, a remarkably close pairing of these two bright objects.
After that, they start to separate. In fact, the following morning finds them three times as far apart as on the 12th. So, don’t miss this celestial get-together! Even if you can’t watch the full progression, be sure to take a look on August 12. Good luck!
