EXPLAINED: Celestial event - Venus, Mars to align in a unique planetary conjunction

A celestial event is going to take place in the sky as Earth's two closest neighboring planets Mars and Venus are going to come together and will form the rare 'planetary conjunction' in the night sky on Tuesday. The bright planets will be close enough in the sky to fit within the field of view of binoculars.

 

 

 

 

Such conjunction takes place when two planets appear to have come closer, while in reality, they remain far away.

 

 

Venus and Mars will appear only a finger's width apart. The two planets will align with the Moon and can be seen in the western sky just after sunset. All three objects will remain in the west-northwest sky for about 90 minutes after sunset. The three planets will be aligned by a separation of just 0.5 degrees with the crescent Moon within four degrees of the two planets on Tuesday.

 

 

 

“Mars and Venus are passing close to each other in the sky and will be only 0.5 degrees (as wide as the size of the moon) on 13 July. The moon will also be close to the, on 12 July. This is a naked eye event, so go out and see them even from today," the Indian Institute of Astrophysics, Bengaluru tweeted on Thursday.

 

 

 

Stargazers will be able to view the unique celestial event just after sunset anywhere in India if weather conditions are clear. The conjunction can be seen by the naked eye.

 

After coming close to each other, both Mars and Venus will move away from each other in their unique orbits. Venus will continue to shift to the left each evening, away from Mars and toward the bright star Regulus.

 

Last year, in December, Jupiter and Saturn came closer to each other and formed Conjunction in the sky. The great conjunction of 2020 was the closest since 1623 and the eighth closest of the first three millennia AD, with a minimum separation between the two planets of 6.1 arcminutes.

 

We might want to remember you that, in October 2020 the red planet came to within 38.8 million miles (62.43 million kilometers) of Earth, the closest it had been to us since August 2003.

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