Fwd: Venus And Jupiter Will Pass 42 Arcseconds Aparts On May 17

15 May 2000 23:27:00
sci.astro
From:
Subject: Venus And Jupiter Will Pass 42 Arcseconds Aparts On May 17
To: sci.astro

A Christmas Star for SOHO
NASA Science News
http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2000/ast16may_1.htm

The planets Venus and Jupiter will pass less than 42 arcseconds apart
on May
17. Because the pair is so close to the Sun, only the Solar and
Heliospheric
Observatory will have a good view of the close encounter.

May 16, 2000 --If someone could turn off the Sun for a while on
Wednesday,
star gazers would be treated to a remarkable sight. The two brightest
planets, Venus and Jupiter, will pass less than 0.01 degrees apart at
1030
UT on May 17. Unfortunately, the close encounter will take place just
7
degrees from the bright Sun, making it impossible to see with the
naked eye.

Nevertheless, you can still monitor the encounter thanks to the ESA/
NASA
Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO). SOHO has an advantage over
most
stargazers. Coronagraphs on the satellite can block out the Sun's
bright
light in order to see nearby stars and planets as well as the Sun's
faint
corona. The conjunction will be easy to see in images from SOHO's wide
field
coronagraph that are posted on the SOHO realtime images web page
(http://sohowww.nascom.nasa.gov/data/...e-images.html).
"If Jupiter and Venus were farther from the Sun on May 17, the
conjunction
would be a real eye-catcher," says astronomer Dr. George Lebo, a 2000
Summer
Faculty Fellow at the Marshall Space Flight Center. "The human eye can
distinguish objects separated by angles greater than 50 arcseconds,
but
Venus and Jupiter will only be 42 arcseconds apart. At closest
approach the
pair would appear to merge into a single brilliant star."

This close conjunction has already been compared to the 2 B.C.
conjunction
of the same planets that is often identified as the "Christmas Star"
reported in the book of Matthew.

In "The Star of Bethlehem: An Astronomical and Historical
Perspective,"
Susan S. Carroll writes:

On June 17, 2 BC, Venus and Jupiter joined .... in the
constellation Leo. The two planets were at best 6" (arcseconds)
apart; some calculations indicate that they actually overlapped
each other. This conjunction occurred during the evening and
would
have appeared as one very bright star. Even if they were 6"
apart,
it would have required the sharpest of eyes to split the two,
because of their brightness.

The Conjunction at a Glance

* Jupiter and Venus will pass 42 arcseconds apart at 10:30 UT on
May 17.
* Both planets will be full phase with apparent polar diameters of
9.8
and 30.8 arcseconds.
* At closest approach their limbs will be separated by only 22
arcseconds.
* The Venus-Jupiter conjunction takes place 7 degrees from the Sun.
* The last time Jupiter and Venus were so close was in 1859; the
next
time will be in 2065.

Venus-Jupiter conjunctions like the one on May 17, 2000, are not
terribly
rare, notes John Mosley of the Griffith Observatory in an essay on
Planetary
Alignments in 2000. According to Mosley, the last time Venus and
Jupiter
were closer than on May 17, 2000 (separated by less than 42
arcseconds) was
at 3:47 on July 21, 1859, when their centers were 32 arcseconds apart
(there
was no partial occultation). The next time will be at 12:45 on
November 22,
2065, when their centers will be 16 arcseconds apart and the northern
edge
of Venus passes in front of Jupiter.

Although Venus and Jupiter will appear to be very close together on
May 17,
there's no danger of a collision. The two are really very far apart.
Venus
will be 257 million km from Earth, while Jupiter will be 896 million
km
away. The two are separated from each other by a comfortable 639
million km.

As Venus passes by Jupiter on May 17 the five classical planets
(Mercury,
Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn) will span just 19• 25'. The cluster
is too
near the sun for naked-eye observations, but it's perfect for SOHO
coronagraphs, which will be able to see all of the planets except
Mars.

SOHO is a cooperative project between the European Space Agency (ESA)
and
NASA. The spacecraft was built in Europe for ESA and equipped with
instruments by teams of scientists in Europe and the USA.

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kelvin.jpl.nasa.gov!baalke
From: (Ron Baalke)
Newsgroups: sci.astro,alt.sci.planetary,alt.astronomy
Subject: Venus And Jupiter Will Pass 42 Arcseconds Aparts On May 17
Date: 15 May 2000 22:27 UT
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