Monday, December 1, 2008

Sky Show Tonight: Jupiter, Venus, Moon to Make "Frown"

Skywatchers across the world are in for a celestial treat Monday night as two of the brightest naked-eye planets, Venus and Jupiter, join a thin crescent moon to create a brief "unhappy face" in the sky.

"This is set to be the best planetary gathering of the year, simply because it involves three of the brightest objects in the sky after the sun," said Geza Gyuk, director of astronomy at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago.

"As long as you have clear skies in the early part of the evening, this is one astronomical event that's hard to miss."

In fact, some historians think that a similar conjunction between Jupiter and Venus in 2 B.C. may be the source of the "star of Bethlehem" story related in the Bible.

The stellar pair would have appeared so close together, scholars think, that they might have seemed to meld into one brilliant beacon of light.

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