In the night sky over ESO's Very Large Telescope (VLT) observatory at Paranal, the Moon shines along with two bright companions: Venus and Jupiter. By ESO/Y. Beletsky - http://www.eso.org/public/images/yb_vlt_moon_cnn_cc/, CC BY 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=11682855

Tonight, a rare conjunction of the planets Venus and Jupiter will appear in the western skyline about half an hour after sundown. The two planets will appear to be so close together (less than half of a degree apart in the sky) that in some places they may look like one giant glowing orb. Since they'll both be lit by the sun, a telescope isn't required to view them, and they'll even be visible in urban areas with light pollution. If you live on the East Coast of the U.S., even better. That's the best place to see this celestial conjunction.

Of course, Venus and Jupiter won't really be close to touching. The planets are 144 million miles and 365 million miles from Earth, respectively. But thanks to our perspective, this event will be a spectacular time to view some of the solar systems brightest planets without a telescope. Do it while you can--the planets won't be this close together again until November 2065.

Source: Space.com

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