PLANETS IN WESTERN SKY

Taranaki Daily News, 17 August 1933, Page 7

PLANETS IN WESTERN SKY

VENUS, JUPITER AND MARS. RARE SIGHT POSSIBLE TO-NIGHT. An interesting and extremely beautiful sight will be visible from Taranaki this evening, when -just after sunset will be seen three planets, Venus, Jupiter and Mars. During the early part of the month Jupiter and Venus have been gradually drawing closer together, and to-night an extremely, close conjunction vzill take place. At sunset the planets will be separated by about 11 minutes of arc.

Since, however, the apparent motion of Venus in the sky is about six times that of Jupiter the planets will rapidly approach one another, and when they set at 7hr. 45min. their distance apart will be about seven minutes of arc, or less than one-quarter of the apparent diameter of the moon. After becoming invisible in New Zealand the planets will continue to draw closer together until about 10 p.m., when their distance apart will only be about one-sixth of the diameter of the moon.

There will be no difficulty in picking out these two bodies after the sun has set, as they will be seen shining as two extremely bright “stars” low down in the western sky. Both will be extremely bright, astronomically speaking their magnitudes are -3.4 and -1.2, which is much brighter than any true. star. Their colours will also make a striking contrast; Venus being like a brilliant sparkling diamond and Jupiter being a deep golden yellow. With small telescopes the planets will present a much more interesting spectacle. Actually, these two planets are millions of miles apart, and it is interesting to note that they can be seen close together when the orbit of the earth is in between the orbit of Venus and Jupiter. Should cleai- weather prevail it .will be a most striking sight and one rarely seen in New Zealand.