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| For education orders please call 1-877-290-8256. Welcome to the August Second Week Featured Article! Jupiter joins Venus at dawn Geoff Gaherty, Starry Night EducationGet up early any morning this week to see a spectacular treat: two morning "stars" dancing at dawn.  On Monday morning, August 18, Jupiter and Venus will be so close together that they will share the same telescope field. Credit: Starry Night software. This week, Venus is joined by a newcomer to the morning sky, the planet Jupiter, just past its conjunction with the Sun on July 24. The two planets meet up on the morning of Monday August 18. They will be so close that it will be hard to separate them with the naked eye, but anyone with binoculars or a small telescope is in for a treat: the rare chance to see two planets in the same field of view. The most striking thing you’ll observe is how much brighter Venus is than Jupiter. Even though Venus is on the far side of its orbit and less than a third the diameter of Jupiter, it is so much closer to the Sun that it outshines Jupiter by over two magnitudes. The closeness of the two planets in the sky is deceptive. Astronomers use the "astronomical unit" as a measuring stick for planetary distances: the average distance from the Earth to the Sun, 93 million miles or 150 million kilometers. This week, Venus is 1.6 astronomical units from Earth while Jupiter is 6.2 astronomical units, so Jupiter is nearly four times farther away than Venus. Despite this difference in distance, Jupiter still appears larger in diameter because of its vast size, nearly 12 times the diameter of Venus. If you watch the two planets dance at dawn over the next week, you will see just how rapidly planets can move. This is exaggerated because Venus is sinking behind the Sun while Jupiter is rising away from the Sun. The speed difference is emphasized by the Earth’s own rapid movement around the Sun. |
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