Venus viewed in ultraviolet light – credit JAXA/ISAS/DARTS/Kevin M. Gill CC 2.0. retrieved from Flickr
Three bright planets will conjoin in the June sky early this month before the Moon jumps in on the 16th.
The conjunction will feature the two brightest planets from our point of view: Venus, blazing hot and near at hand, and Jupiter, far away but orders of magnitude larger.
Arrayed in a line drawn from northwest to southeast across the western sky after sunset, Mercury sits near the horizon to complete the skewer.
The event will begin on the 7th, when for a person looking west-northwest, it will appear that Venus and Jupiter sit beside one another. As the nights go on, Venus will gradually move in a northwesterly direction, and by the 10th will practically touch the light of Jupiter.
She will continually move past the gas giant until the 16th when she will sit along an almost perfect line with Jupiter and Mercury—the same night that a waxing crescent Moon will position herself between the latter two around 35 minutes after sunset.
The following night—the 17th—at around the same time, the Moon will appear just above and to the left of Venus, creating a new arrangement of Moon, Venus, Jupiter, and Mercury in an even closer-to-perfect line.
One cool thing about this conjunction is that in the Southern Hemisphere, almost all the details and timing are the same—only in reverse, with the line being drawn northeast to southwest.
It’s a superb introduction to these solar system neighbors, and a perfect opportunity to get out in the lovely late-spring night air when frogs and crickets are peeping with renewal.
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