(OT) Planetary news

[tomf]

Not strictly cycling, but I've just been outside and noticed that if you look south-west at the moment (or in the next couple of hours) you can see two extremely bright planets in the sky - Venus (above, brightest) and Jupiter (below, dimmer). Which is kind of nice. Handy combination of very clear sky, equinox, planetary convergence and so on. Beats listening to Budget News at any rate.

Some more info at http://astronomycentral.co.uk/planets-t ... ky-tonight

cheers
tom

[Dan]

They were brighter and closer together a few days ago, I dug my telescope out of the loft and could quite clearly see three of Jupiters moons. If you look east you can see Mars too.

[MarkA]

Good question from tom in tampa

http://astronomycentral.co.uk/discussio ... -and-venus

Venus is between the earth and the sun while Jupiter is on the other side of the earth from the sun. So how can they be so close to each other in the sky?

[tomf]

Err... draw three concentric circle(ish) things, with the sun at the centre. The middle one is the Earth's orbit, inner is Venus, outer is Jupiter. Now move coins around the circles until you can line them up so someone looking from the dark (not sunny) side of Earth can see Venus and Jupiter in about the same direction - it can be done, eg. if earth is about 3 o'clock, Venus about 1 o'clock and Jupiter around 10 o'clock (kind of way over the other side.

So in a way the answer is: the planets don't march around the sun together, they move in and out of alignment.

Jupiter is way bigger than Venus, and it looks smaller to me, so that sort of figures with it being much further away.

That was a serious question, right?

I had a look with the children and we used binoculars but couldn't make out any of Jupiter's moons...

[Broom Wagon]

13th was the best to see them, they were in perfect alignment.