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Venus and Jupiter melting

On the 2nd of March two planets in our solar system seems to melt together in the sky: Venus and Jupiter. That phenomenon is nit seen every day. In fact it is rather spectacular you can see it with the naked eye. Also the weather should be clear and no clouds. Well, we were lucky this time. Otherwise we won't get another conjunction of the two brightest naked-eye planets that's this easily visible until 2041!

picture of Venus Jupiter conjunction. picture was taken on the balcony of Casa Maria in Sedella at March 2, 2023 at 19:49 with clear sky.
Enlarge the picture to see Venus and Jupiter more Clearly. The picture was taken on the balcony of Casa Maria in Sedella on March 2, 2023 at 19:49. Usually we have a clear sky.

On the pictures you will notice a bright star and one is less bright. The brighter one is Venus (closer to the sun) and the other one is Jupiter, even though it is the bigger one of the two. Every once in a while, including in early March, 2023, these two planets align in the skies: creating an astronomical conjunction.


Like clockwork, the planets dance in the night sky, passing one another in predictable, repeating orbits. A dance, that’s been ongoing continuously for billions of years. Even despite the effects of General Relativity and the gravitational influence of the other planets on one another, the simple laws of planetary motion that date back to Kepler dictating how quickly the planets move, in ellipses around the Sun, relative to one another are so perfect that they require no corrections over the timescale of many centuries to successfully predict where, at any given time, the planets will appear relative to one another.


Venus Juniter conjunction from balcony of Casa Maria in Sedella on March 2, 2023 at 20:37 hours.
This picture was taken also from the balcony of Casa Maria in Sedella less than 1 hour after the other picture.

The conjunctions truly are far more frequent than leap years are. In fact, they occur roughly annually, on average. But conjunctions that are actually visible from Earth are much more rare, because most of the ones that occur aren’t visible for a simple reason: you can’t see planets with your naked eye during the day.


However, it truly was a phenomenon to see those two planets so close together. I found more in depth information on this event on the internet. Just click the link on the word information.

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