Earth’s moon poses with picturesque worlds this week, as it cozies up to Venus and multicolored stars.  And mid-week, a cosmic harp, the Lyrid meteors, will generate fiery notes across the sky.  

Until the pre-dawn hours on Thursday morning, as many as 15 to 20 meteors per hour should be visible across the Northern Hemisphere in areas away from light-polluted cities.

This proximity is just an optical illusion, of course, since sunlight reflected off the surface of the moon takes only 1.33 seconds to reach Earth and light bouncing off the cloud tops of Jupiter make the trip to our planet in 42.8 minutes.

Happy hunting!