In case you missed the moon and Venus in the sky a couple of days ago, don’t worry, the rare phenomenon will be seen again in the month of March this year.
A rare celestial phenomenon is set to occur between Venus and the Moon in the month of March.
On Thursday this week, if you live in the northern hemisphere, you probably saw Venus alongside a crescent moon.
This happened because we are currently in the middle of an evening apparition of Venus, which is the last period of the where the planet climbs higher in the sky until it reaches its greatest separation from our sun.
When a planet is at its greatest elongation is when it appears farthest from the sun, as it can be seen from our planet. This phenomenon allows us, humans, to have the best view.
In case you missed it last Thursday, don’t worry, Venus is expected to reach its maximum elongation for the year in the east by March 24, 2020.
On March 24, 2020, you can see Venus out in the sky for a maximum amount of time after the sunset.
The planets and the moon are going to follow roughly the same path through the sky, which is called the ecliptic.
The ecliptic is the plane of the solar system on which all the planets orbit the sun and the moon travels nearby. The moon and the planets occasionally appear to pass closely by each other in the night sky.
If we talk about numbers, Venus, the planet that we are talking about, is around 84 million miles away from our planet, and the moon is around 250,000 miles away from us.
But the perspective of humans will make it look like everything is close.