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Mother nature is putting on a rare show this week as Venus and Mars will be at their closest in the night's sky.

Planet Venus is the brilliant 'Evening Star' this winter and has been blazing in the evening skies from sunset until 9pm since Christmas.

It's nearly 100 times brighter than the brightest stars in the sky.

Venus and Mars have been creeping closer together for months and they will be closest apart this week.

When is the event happening?

On February 1 stargazers are in for a treat as the planets will be at their closest. But they're not going to pass each other.

The moon passes 4 degrees south of Venus, and the two also form a nice equilateral triangle with Mars on the same date.

It's an excellent time to admire this dazzling but shrouded world of mystery.

Where is the best place to see it?

At 7pm on Wednesday February 1, Astronomy Ireland will set up giant telescopes free of charge at its Dublin headquarters for everyone in the country to come and see Venus and Mars up close.

The moon will also be on view.

The telescopes in use can show up to a quarter of a million times more detail than the human eye so the brilliant 'star like' planet Venus will be transformed into a crescent shaped disk - something almost no humans alive have ever seen.

See HERE for more details.

What will we see?

Mars is plainly visible to the naked eye just to the upper left of Venus but it not as dazzling as Venus as it is 3.5 times further away than Venus, and Mars is much smaller than Venus also (about half the diameter of Venus).

What the experts say



(Image: Feargal Ward)

David Moore, Editor of Astronomy Ireland magazine, "To have two planets visible to the naked eye come close together in the sky is a rare treat, so we just had to set up powerful telescopes to show both up close to the general public."

But it's only an illusion

Moore added: "While it's only a line-of-sight effect, and the planets are not really close in space, they will look like a spectacular pair to the naked eye and it will be over four years before we see them close together in the evening skies from Ireland.

Here's everything you need to know about Venus

(Image: Getty Images)



Venus is almost the same size as the Earth. It has a runaway 'greenhouse effect' that has driven the surface temperature to 500 Celsius.

The 'air' pressure on the surface is 90 times what it is here on Earth.

Venus is 100% covered in clouds and they contain battery acid (sulphuric acid).

Here's everything you need to know about Mars



(Image: Getty)



Mars is half the diameter of Earth. Being 1.5 times our distance from the Sun it is a cold desert planet.

But there is water below the surface, enough in fact, that if it were melted and brought to the surface it would cover the whole planet to a depth of 30 metres.

There is a very thin atmosphere, about as thin as our atmosphere is at a height of three times higher than Mount Everest. So humans could not breathe on Mars.

There are plans by billionaires who set up PayPal and Amazon.com to have one million people living on Mars by the end of this century.



DISTANCES

Mars is 277 million km from Earth on the night of the Watch, and Venus is 80 million km away.