Wednesday, December 3, 2008
Position of Jupiter and Venus
From our point of view on Earth, Venus and Jupiter have appeared near each other over the past couple of weeks. Jupiter happens to lie almost on the ecliptic, which is the plane of the Earth's orbit projected onto the celestial sphere. Venus is a couple of degrees below it.
Monday evening's close triple conjunction had the Moon also 2º below the ecliptic. About 1 pm on that day, the Moon occulted Venus, ie., it appeared to move in front of it. It was daytime here in Virginia, but it was early evening in London. They must have had a spectacular sight!
Such is our view from Earth ...