Venus and Jupiter are about to conjunct in the sky

According to CNNthe two planets will appear closest to each other at about 2 am on May 1.

At that time, the two planets were only 2/10 degrees apart. That distance is almost half the width of the moon as seen from the ground.

Patrick Hartigan, a professor of physics and astronomy at Rice University in Houston, the Venus-Jupiter conjunction occurs once a year. But this year, the two planets will appear closer together than usual.

According to NASA, the last time these two planets were close together was in August 2016. Although the next conjunction will take place at the end of the month, astronomy lovers can see these two planets slowly moving backwards.

On April 27, Venus and Jupiter are 3.2 degrees apart. “Venus and Jupiter are usually the two brightest planets in the sky, so they show up quite clearly when close together,” Mr. Hartigan said.

According to EarthSky, you can completely observe this amazing phenomenon without a telescope. In the Northern Hemisphere, viewers should look along the southeast horizon as soon as dawn begins, but make sure it’s still dark enough to see some stars. In addition, you need to pay attention to the sky if pollution will interfere with visibility.

In fact, both Venus and Jupiter are still moving in their own orbits and do not come close to each other. They appear closer due to the angle of view from Earth during this time.

Venus is currently 80 million km from Earth, while the distance from Jupiter to our planet is 885 million km. Despite appearing close together during the next few days of conjunction, the two planets are still millions of kilometers apart in space.