Wednesday, June 3, 2015

The Night Sky Tonight

The Night Sky...

If you look at the sky tonight (June 3rd, 2015) at about 8.00 pm in the western direction (direction where the Sun sets) you might be able to see two bright stars. Well these two bright objects are not actually stars but they are actually planets, the planet Venus and the planet Jupiter. 


Venus











Jupiter










The very bright star like object is the planet Venus which is actually the third brightest object in the sky after the Sun and the Moon. One thing to note is that Venus will always appear only at dawn or at dusk. This is because the orbit of Venus is smaller than the orbit of the Earth, meaning to say that it is always closer to the Sun as compared to Earth. Thus it will always 'follow' the Sun (if it is visible during dusk) or being 'followed' by the Sun (if it is visible during dawn). That is why Venus is sometimes called the 'Morning Star' or 'Evening Star' although it is not an actual star.

The slightly fainter 'star' is the planet Jupiter. Even though Jupiter is actually very much bigger than Venus in size, it is actual very much further from us. And furthermore it is also very much further from the Sun (source of light), thus it appears to be fainter than Venus.

The other 'naked eye' planets are difficult to be seen at this time. Mercury and Mars are now being obscured by the light from the Sun as they are located in our sky mostly during daytime. It is still possible to see Saturn but it is quite faint and difficult to be seen and differentiated from other stars. Furthermore the Moon is still 'full' right now and the light from the Moon will make it even more challenging to see it clearly.


( graphics from www.astronomy.com )

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