Rare Planetary Alignment Taking Place This Week

This week before dawn the planet Venus reaches a huge milestone in the morning sky. This brilliant world attains its greatest western elongation – its farthest point from the sunrise.

By a wonderful coincidence, Venus is also in conjunction with the planet Jupiter on October 26. Plus, the closest grouping of the three morning planets (Venus, Jupiter and Mars) for all of 2015 takes place on October 26.

Jupiter, Venus and Mars closest for 2015. Look closely. Venus and Jupiter aren’t the only planets in the predawn sky. Jupiter, Venus and Mars are now in the midst of what’s called a planetary trio in our predawn sky. That is, all three planets have been within a 5-degree circle on our sky’s dome since around October 24. They’ll remain this close until around October 29.

By the way, the last planetary trio was in 2013. We won’t see another one until January of 2021.

(EarthSky.org)