Star of Bethlehem Tonight

[jgoo]

http://www.cnn.com/2015/06/30/us/feat-jupiter-venus-conjunction/

(CNN)Put down the cell phone. Go outside. Look up.

Tuesday night, Jupiter and Venus will culminate a month-long dance with what astronomers say will be a dazzling display, appearing just a fraction of a degree apart from one another in the night sky -- a show that some astronomers say could account for the "Star of Bethlehem" mentioned in the Bible.

"To the eye they'll look like a double star," Sky & Telescope editor Kelly Beatty said on the magazine's website.

To see the lineup, look to the west-northwest shortly after sunset.

This isn't a particularly rare event; such conjunctions are fairly frequent, thanks to how Earth and the two planets line up in the solar system, according to Sky & Telescope.

iReporter Lonna Ours took these photos of Venus and Jupiter on June 21. The two planets are moving closer together throughout the month of June and will eventually appear to converge.

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But the combination of how close the planets will appear -- one-third of a degree -- the viewing angle at many latitudes and the time of day make this a particularly special event that ranks "very highly" among conjunctions, Rice University astronomer Patrick Hartigan wrote on his website.

Although the planets will appear to draw near one another in August and again in October, the next such event to rival Tuesday night's won't happen until 2023, he said.

And although the two planets will appear to be close together, in reality, millions of miles of empty space separate them.

[AdamSmith]

Thank you for this post!

Of course just as I was reading it, clouds rolled in here.

But the Sky & Telescope web site will no doubt have gorgeous pics of it tomorrow and subsequently from both pro astronomers and amateurs.

(Coincidentally a former editor of fhat magazine, which is published out of Cambridge, MA, was a proudly out gay man somewhat before it was commonplace.)

History of the mag: http://www.skyandtelescope.com/about/

[MsAnn]

Of course just as I was reading it, clouds rolled in here.

Ditto...Fingers crossed didn't help.

[AdamSmith]

Ditto...Fingers crossed didn't help.

Somewhere I saw a "Desiderata for Astronomers" that read in part:

...and no doubt the cloud deck is unfolding as it should...

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