                        Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                                2023 March 4

                        10 Days of Venus and Jupiter
               Image Credit & Copyright: Soumyadeep Mukherjee

   Explanation: Venus and Jupiter may have caught your attention lately.
   The impending close conjunction of the two brightest planets visible in
   clear evening skies has been hard to miss. With Jupiter at the top,
   starting on February 21 and ending on March 2, their close approach is
   chronicled daily, left to right, in these panels recorded from Dhanbad,
   India. Near the western horizon, the evening sky colors and exposures
   used for each panel depend on the local conditions near sunset. On
   February 22, Jupiter and Venus were joined by the young crescent Moon.
   The celestial pair appeared to be only the width of a full moon apart
   by March 2. Of course on that date the two planets were physically
   separated by over 600 million kilometers in their orbits around the
   Sun. In the coming days Jupiter will slowly settle into the glare at
   sunset, but Venus will continue to move farther from the Sun in the
   western sky to excel in its current role as the brilliant evening star.

      Jupiter & Venus Conjunction Gallery: Notable Submissions to APOD
                     Tomorrow's picture: a postcard view
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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