STAR GAZER
THE INTERNATIONAL EDITION
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Horkheimer: Greetings, greetings fellow star gazers. This weekend all of us on the third rock from the Sun will be able to watch the first and second rocks from the Sun pair up in a beautiful close evening encounter which won't happen again until November of 2011. Let me show you!
O.K., we've got our skies set up for this Saturday and Sunday April 3rd and 4th, 45 minutes to one hour after sunset, facing west where you'll be absolutely dazzled by planet #2, 8,000 mile wide Venus, and down to its right, planet #1 the smallest planet, 3,000 mile wide Mercury. Now Venus will be a brilliant white and brighter than any star or planet in the sky. But tiny Mercury will look pinkish although it's not really pink. The reason it looks pink is because it never gets very high above the horizon so we always see it through thicker layers of our Earth's murky atmosphere which gives it this strange coloration. Sometimes when Mercury gets a bit higher above the horizon it loses its pink.
Now this Saturday and Sunday they will be at their closest for this meeting, only 3 degrees apart. And since a full Moon is 1/2 a degree wide this means we could fit only six full Moons between them which is pretty close astronomically speaking. But if you miss this pairing this weekend they'll still be almost as close at the beginning of next week. After which they'll slowly pull away from each other, but will still be only 4 degrees apart Saturday and Sunday April 10th and 11th, which means we could fit 8 full Moons between them instead of 6. They'll appear much brighter through binoculars and because they go through phases just like our Moon.
Through a small telescope Mercury will look like a tiny crescent Moon and Venus will look like a nearly full, gibbous Moon. But remember even though they appear very close to each other visually they are actually very far apart from each other. Now when we talk about planet distances we frequently mean planet distances relative to the Sun. For instance Mercury's average distance from the Sun is 36 million miles, Venus' average distance is 67 million miles and Earth's aver age distance is 93 million miles. But because the planets are always moving in orbit about the Sun their distances from each other constantly change so that while we usually think of Venus as being closer to us than Mercury that's not always true depending on where each one is in its orbit.
This weekend Mercury will actually be closer to us than Venus, only 91 million miles away, about the same distance as our Earth is from the Sun. But Venus will be much farther away in its orbit, a whopping 146 million miles away! Which means they will actually be 55 million miles apart from each other even though they look super close. Wow! So get thee out this weekend and all next week to watch this exquisite pairing of planets #1 and #2. It's a great view from planet #3. Keep looking up!
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Horkheimer: This weekend planets #1 and #2 pair up in an evening encounter which won't happen again until November 2011. Saturday and Sunday April 3rd and 4th about an hour after sunset face west and you'll see dazzling planet #2, 8,000 mile wide Venus and down to its right planet #1, 3,000 mile wide Mercury, only three degrees apart from each other, which means we could fit only six full Moons between them. Mercury will look pink to the naked eye, but through a telescope it will look like a tiny crescent Moon. And Venus will look like an almost full moon. And although they'll look super close they'll actually be 55 million miles apart from each other. Wow! So catch planets #1 and #2 from planet #3. Keep looking up!
How did you like this episode?
Please give us your comments. (Click
Here)
* This week's Sky At A Glance
and Planet Roundup from Sky & Telescope.Starry Night Deluxe was used to produce this episode
of Star Gazer
![[SmilinJack]](jack1sm.jpg)
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