In the year 2023, which is not exactly rich in special celestial events, there is a great opportunity from the end of February to observe a striking spectacle. The two brightest planets, Venus and Jupiter, meet and can be seen in the evening western sky – even in light-polluted cities!
Venus and Jupiter will come closest on the evening of March 1 — at least from the terrestrial observer’s point of view. In fact, the brighter Venus is more than 100 million kilometers from Earth on this day, and the slightly fainter gas giant Jupiter is about 7.5 times that far, explains Alexander Pikhard of the Vienna Association for Astronomy.
Venus and Jupiter meet every eleven to fifteen months, but not all encounters are equally easy to observe. The next time it will be as noticeable as this year is in August 2025, but at sunrise.
The planetary rendezvous is short-lived, as Jupiter is not visible until early March. But until early summer, the young crescent moon always joins the evening star i.e. Venus at the end of the month. “It is precisely this constellation that is particularly attractive to look at. Venus and the crescent moon make a great photo motif,” says Michael Jäger, president of the Astronomical Center in Martinsberg in Lower Austria.
Source: Krone
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