“Star light, star bright, the first star I see tonight…” The opening lines of the famous nursery rhyme are a poetic, but potentially misleading, tribute to the magic of sunset and twilight. Often the first “star” you see at nightfall isn’t a star at all, but rather a planet! In fact, right now the two brightest objects in the night sky after the Moon are both planets: Venus and Jupiter. These two planets will be putting on a dazzling performance over the next few weeks. The climax will occur on the night of June 30th, when they will appear to be separated by just half a degree in the evening sky. That’s roughly the same as the diameter of the Full Moon!
Planets like Jupiter and Venus have long mystified sky watchers. Ancient astronomers noticed that nearly all of the stars in the sky were unchanging in their position relative to each other. But a handful, five to be exact, appeared to wander across the sky relative to the rest of the stars. This earned these objects the name “planet”, meaning “wandering star” in Ancient Greek. We now know that this wandering motion is due to the planet’s orbital motion around the Sun.
Occasionally, the never-ending dance of the planets brings two or more of them very close to each other in our sky. This is known as a conjunction. Over the next week or so, Venus and Jupiter will wander closer and closer to each other, culminating in the conjunction on June 30th.
Want to see the show for yourself? Simply look due west just after sunset. You’ll see two bright star-like objects; the brighter of the two will be Venus. They may not be stars, but due to their brilliance, Venus and Jupiter are among the most spectacular naked eye sights in the sky. Feel free to make a wish on both of them!
Western Slope Skies is produced by members of the Black Canyon Astronomical Society. This episode was written by Zach Schierl, and recorded by Joyce Tanihara.
