Smiley in the Sky
Venus (left), Jupiter (right), and the crescent moon form a heavenly smile
Maybe you’ve noticed it in the sky also…Two bright “stars” right near the crescent moon. To us here in Virginia, it looks like a frown, but in the southern hemisphere they see a smile. The two “stars” are actually planets. Venus is the brighter one on the left, Jupiter is on the right, and the moon is a waxing crescent. If you’d like to learn more about the moon check out my Moon Site. There you can watch an animated Flash video about the moon and play a couple of moon games. Teachers, you can download a Keynote lesson to use with your students on my Downloads Page.
March 7, 2009 at 4:39 pm
We were lucky enough to get a lunar occulation of Venus (the moon going between us and Venus) at that time (probably the day after the photo). At 5pm as it was getting dark, we could see the moon, with Jupiter above it. No Venus as it was behind the moon.
About 6pm we could then see Venus just to the bottom right of the moon, and by half an hour later the moon had moved on and Venus was further away from it.
The next time the moon, Venus and Jupiter are near each other in the evening sky is, as far as I can tell, early 2012 (around 25 & 26 February and 24 & 25 March). A useful place to start from for seeing what the sky will be like is Heavens Above ( http://www.heavens-above.com ) which is reasonably user-friendly.