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How to see Venus and a crescent moon face to face this Thursday

2020-02-27T19:51:30.960Z


If you live in the northern hemisphere and have a clear sky on Thursday, look southwest and you'll see a very bright Venus next to a crescent moon.


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The dance of Venus and Jupiter in the sky 0:27

(CNN) - A celestial phenomenon will occur between Venus and the moon this Thursday night, according to the NASA calendar.

If you live in the northern hemisphere and have a clear sky this Thursday, look southwest and you'll see a very bright Venus next to a crescent moon, two of the brightest objects in the night sky.

  • The Earth has a new mini-moon, but only temporarily

Why is Venus so bright?

Venus, also known as the "evening star," is the third brightest object in the sky after the Sun and the Moon.

The planet is as bright as it is due to a feature called "albedo," which astronomers use to describe how bright a planet is by specific measurements, according to EarthSky, a website of scientists that provides updates on the events of the cosmos. When sunlight hits a planet, part of the light is absorbed by the planet's surface or atmosphere, and another part is reflected.

Albedo is a comparison between sunlight that affects an object and the amount that is reflected. The albedo of Venus is about 0.7, which means that its thick cloud cover reflects approximately 70% of the light that hits it back into space. Venus is also the closest neighbor of the Earth in the solar system, as it is the closest planet to Earth in orbit around the sun.

Why will we see a crescent moon?

The Moon takes 29.5 days to orbit the Earth. The crescent moon that we will see on Thursday night comes after the new moon we saw on Sunday, February 23, which means that the visible side of the moon was between the Earth and the Sun, so we could not see it.

But as the Moon moves away from that position on its journey around the Earth, we can gradually see the side of the moon illuminated by the sun: a crescent moon rising in the western sky for a few days while it is on its way to fill again.

Why are they found and how can you see it?

We are currently in the midst of an "evening appearance" of Venus, which is the period of time during which the planet rises higher in the sky until it reaches its greatest separation from the sun.

When a planet is at its greatest elongation, it is when it seems furthest from the sun seen from Earth, so its appearance is also better at that point. Venus is expected to reach its maximum elongation for the year in the east of the night sky by March 24, 2020, according to EarthSky. On this night, Venus will remain outside for a maximum time after sunset.

The planets and the moon follow approximately the same path through the sky, which is called ecliptic. The ecliptic is the plane of the solar system in which all the planets orbit around the sun, and the moon travels nearby. The Moon and planets occasionally seem to pass close to each other in the night sky.

Actually, Venus will be about 135 million kilometers from Earth on February 27, while the moon is almost 402,336 kilometers away. But our earthly perspective will remain a seemingly close sighting.

While the weather is clear, those who live in the northern hemisphere can see the meeting between the crescent moon and Venus as they go outdoors after sunset and look toward the southwest horizon. Under the constellation of Aries, you should see the crescent moon below and next to Venus.

If you miss it tonight, you won't have to wait long before a similar phenomenon occurs in the last days of March.

ScienceSpace

Source: cnnespanol

All news articles on 2020-02-27

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