Who says romance is dead?
Clearly not the astronomers celebrating a sweet "cosmic kiss" that took place between Jupiter and Venus last night (March 1).
Yep, you read that correctly! The Jupiter-Venus space smooch was part of what is called a conjunction, according to experts. The Royal Museums Greenwich explains that this occurs when "any two astronomical objects (such as asteroids, moons, planets, and stars) appear to be close together in the sky, as observed from Earth.
"Occasionally planets seem to occupy the same space in the night sky because of their alignment - though they are in fact millions of kilometers away from each other," they continued.
Jackie Faherty an astronomer at the American Museum of Natural History detailed the situation for NPR, saying that Jupiter and Venus are actually "400 million miles apart" from each other. "Venus is passing Jupiter as they both orbit the sun. The inner planets move a lot faster than the outer planets. So you get a lot of these like racetrack passes," she says.
The two planets appeared in the western sky above the horizon at around 06:58 PM ET, per CNN. The Royal Astronomical Society of the UK told the outlet that: "The best time to spot the conjunction of Jupiter and Venus in the US" was early Wednesday evening, "but the two planets will continue to appear close together in the night sky on Thursday [...] The conjunction will be visible to the naked eye."
If you ended up missing Jupiter and Venus' cute little peck, don't fret! There are plenty of other planetary events throughout the rest of the year, with the next one being a Lyrid meteor shower from April 15 to 29. Space.com explains that meteo showers occur "when the Earth passes through debris left behind from comets and asteroids, which is why they occur at around the same time each year.
"The Lyrids originate from the comet Thatcher, which orbits the sun about every 415 years. This is one of the oldest recorded showers, with observations dating back to 687 B.C.E.," the outlet continued. The spectacular display is visible in both the Northern and Southern Hemisphere, so there should be ample viewing opportunities, and stargazers can expect to see between 18 to 100 meteors per hour!
On August 31, Smithsonian Magazine details that the Blue Moon will make an appearance, something that occurs only once every 2.5 years. "The moon will be the closest in its elliptical orbit to Earth, making it a supermoon. Four supermoons will appear in a row this year—on July 3, August 1, August 31 and September 29. Because the month of August will see two full moons, the second is considered a blue moon. Blue moons happen every 2.5 years, and the last one occurred in August 2021," the Magazine explains.
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