Did you see it last night over the Pacific Ocean? Clear skies over Oregon’s Bay Area made it an easy observance. Here’s a report: On Wednesday (March 1) and Thursday (March 2), two bright planets will appear as if they were about to collide in the night sky. Jupiter, the largest planet in the solar system, and Venus, one of the brightest objects in Earth’s sky, will come within about half a degree of each other — or roughly one full moon’s width apart. For weeks, the two bodies have been inching closer together, building toward a phenomenon called a conjunction, which occurs whenever two objects in the sky — such as moons, planets or stars — appear exceptionally close together. This phenomenon is, of course, a trick of perspective. The two bright planets are in fact millions of miles apart; only from our point of view on Earth do they appear to butt against each other. Thanks to the orbital patterns of Earth, Jupiter and Venus, conjunctions like this occur once every year or so.
