Venus and Jupiter dazzle in late November
The planet Venus
Image Credit: NASA
November 21, 2008.
As seen from around the globe, from north to south, the two brightest planets – Venus and Jupiter – are now dazzling in the west after sunset.
You won’t want to miss them. Venus is the most brilliant point of light in the sky, and Jupiter is second-brightest.. You’ll find these two worlds inching closer together each evening for the rest of November. Just be sure not to wait too long after sunset, because Venus and Jupiter will set before mid-evening.
Venus is the brighter and lower light. Jupiter is fainter and higher up. Both worlds are brighter than any stars. Venus will climb closer to Jupiter throughout November 2008, so that these two brilliant worlds will have a conjunction by the end of the month. That just means they’ll line up due north and south of each other on the imaginary celestial sphere surrounding Earth. This will be the best evening pairing of Venus and Jupiter until the year 2012.
In Greek, the word planet means “wanderer,” and now is the time to notice planetary motion. This evening, Venus and Jupiter will be about 10 degrees apart. That’s the width of your fist at an arm length from your eye.
By the end of November, these planets will be only 2 degrees apart in the west after sunset. That’s the width of your finger.
The closer a planet is to the sun, the greater its orbital velocity. Venus, the second planet outward from the sun, travels nearly 3 times faster than Jupiter, the fifth planet out from the sun. Therefore, look for the swifter-moving Venus to climb above Jupiter by early December.
Jupiter lies a bit more than 7 times Venus’ distance from the sun. For every time that Jupiter circles the sun once, Venus circles the sun about 19 times. But Venus doesn’t travel 19 times faster than Jupiter does. Since Jupiter’s orbital circumference is about 7 times larger than that of Venus, we must divide 19 by 7 to find that Venus’ orbital velocity is about 2.7 times greater than Jupiter’s.
Wow great article! I noticed the bright stars, and now I know that they are actually bright planets! :) So what date will they conjoin? Thanks for all the good information!!
Hi Annabelle.
Many thanks for your kind words! For more information on the upcoming conjunction, read Venus and Jupiter in conjunction on November 30. By the way, are you the Annabelle that recently joined the EarthSky Community on facebook? If so, welcome aboard!
Bruce
wooooow is that really versus it is so beautiful
We’ve just gone outside and these two planets are amazingly bright! They certainly grab your attention. Absolutely beautiful. Time at present is 8.20pm AEST, 30 Nov 08