BellaOnline Forums Education Astronomy What're those two bright stars in the morning sky?

If you're up before the Sun - which in summer, I'm certainly not - recently you may have been seeing two bright "stars" as dawn approaches. They are actually not stars, but are Venus and Jupiter.

And they're getting closer together. Don't worry, they're not jumping out of their orbits for a cataclysmic meeting. They only appear closer together in the sky. When two or more heavenly bodies appear quite close together, we call it a conjunction. On August 18, Venus and Jupiter will be at their closest and it's a lovely sight.

2012 conjunction of Venus and Jupiter - complete with cat.

Here's a picture taken during the 2012 conjunction. (The planets won't look that large - the photographer had to be a long way from the person in the picture to get this effect.)







. . . . . . . NASA has made a short video about the conjunction.

Here is a picture of the Venus/Jupiter conjunction taken this morning from Canada. Wow! Get up early if the weather is okay and you have a view to the east. (I have a mountain in the way, so don't see anything that happens in the dawn sky.) It's really beautiful.

Venus and Jupiter peeking through the clouds this morning. Although they're moving apart they will still be a lovely pre-dawn sight in the east northeast this week. On August 23 (Saturday) they'll be joined by the crescent Moon!

I told you that a crescent moon would join Jupiter and Venus in the morning sky on Saturday August 23rd. Today was the day, and here is a photo taken this morning in Corpus Christi, Texas of the three heavenly bodies. Certainly a lovely sight that would have been worth getting up early for!