How to See a Rare Planetary Close Encounter
Your guide to watching Venus and Jupiter almost touch in the evening sky.
Skywatchers are getting an amazing sky show this weekend as two of the brightest planets visible from Earth will appear to nearly merge. Anyone with clear skies can catch this spectacular close encounter between Venus and Jupiter after local sunset on Saturday, August 27.
When two or more worlds appear to huddle together in the sky, astronomers call it a conjunction. While this happens fairly frequently in our night skies with faint objects, in this instance we have planets visible to the unaided eyes. Both Venus and Jupiter have been dominating the sunset skies for many weeks now and have been appearing to slowly converge from night to night.
That’s because of their relative positions in their orbits around the sun
