Alien Headlights?
Published on Jan 31, 2008 at 5:10 pm.
2 Comments.
Filed under skywatching.
If you get up early Friday morning and look to the East in the dawn twilight, you’ll see two bright lights close together in the southeastern sky. It may look something like this view that I produced using Stellarium planetarium software:
Given the rash of UFO sightings lately, I am expecting that there will be a rash of people claiming that these are headlights on an UFO heading towards them, or perhaps two UFOs flying in formation. But, they are really just two planets: Venus and Jupiter.
Planets move around the Sun. In fact, the word planet comes from the Greek for “wanderer.” Planets are wandering stars because they move around and are in different constellations at different times. Venus moves back and forth to either side of the Sun. Jupiter moves in a more stately way through the constellations, spending about a year in each one. Venus has been rising in the East in the mornings for a while, and it has been a brilliant object. But, Venus is moving around to the far side of the Sun from Earth, so it is gradually getting lower in the sky in the mornings. Jupiter has been on the far side of the Sun from the Earth. But, Earth, which moves around the Sun nearly twelve times faster than Jupiter, is moving around the Sun bringing Jupiter into better view. It appears slightly higher in the sky each morning. The two will appear to pass one another, as seen from Earth, at about 01:12 Universal Time. That is about 7:12 pm, Central Standard Time, here in Texas. Unfortunately, both planets will be well below the horizon at that time. But, early Friday morning, they will still be very close together. In fact, for the next few days, they will appear very close to one another in the sky for observers just about anywhere on Earth.
When planets pass one another like this, we call the point of closest approach a conjunction. Venus and Jupiter are in conjunction every couple of years or so, so this is not such a terribly unusual event. However, this conjunction will be a bit closer than most. Venus and Jupiter will be a little over the width of a full Moon away from one another. That means that it may be possible for many telescopes to get the two in the same field of view when using a very low power eyepiece. I’ve seen multiple planets simultaneously through the eyepiece before, but not often. But, the nice thing is that the planets will still be far enough away from one another that you can still see them separately (though very close) with your unaided eyes.
So, if you get a chance, go out and look at this sight on Friday morning.
-Astroprof
Brian Waddington on February 1, 2008 at 8:16 pm: 1
Did get a chance and the clouds cooperated. Through our 4.5″ reflector at both 75 and 30x both planets were visible showing their comparative visual size to perfection. Then again I might have been seeing an alien motorcycle side car combination with two different size headlights? Don’t forget Scorpius dressing up with the moon as a necklace. Two days from now maybe even prettier with Moon.
joanne on February 14, 2008 at 3:56 pm: 2
Yes, my walking partner and I walk at 0530 in Florida every morning. Not expecting anything drastically different that morning we were like deer in headlights when we looked up and saw them. Being so big we thought they must be planets–totally WOW. How could you miss them! I kept forgetting to research what they were; again this morning we spoke of the awe of seeing them so close together. Now we have the rest of the story…much better than aliens too and another reason to drag myself out of bed at 0515.