Close Planetary Pair and Chandra
Submitted by chandra on Thu, 2012-03-15 13:48All this week, Venus and Jupiter have appeared very close to each other in the night sky. Most people in the Northern Hemisphere have been able to spot the planetary duo in the western skies about four hours after sunset.
This close pairing is a nice treat for skywatchers on Earth, but it really is an optical illusion of sorts. The planets are, of course, nowhere near each other. Venus is about 75 million miles away in one direction and Jupiter is over 500 million miles away in the other. Venus and Jupiter simply appear to come close to another from our vantage point on Earth as they travel in their usual orbits around the Sun.