How to see planets ‘kiss’ in sky

There’s love in the night sky.

Jupiter and Venus are set to share a “cosmic kiss” Thursday night as they appear side by side.

The two planets crossed paths shortly after sunset Wednesday night as Jupiter moved west and Venus slowly passed in the other direction.

Sky-watchers will be able to see the Jupiter and Venus share a smooch with the naked eye early in the evening, shortly after sunset.

Venus is the brightest planet and can be seen on the right side, while Jupiter is the leftmost one in the sky.

The Virtual Telescope Project will also bring the cosmic event online for people all over the world.

While the best time to identify the Jupiter and Venus conjunction in the US might have been last night in some areas, the two planets will also look close together tonight as well, Robert Massey, deputy executive director of the Royal Astronomical Society in the UK, told The Mirror.

For the past few weeks, they have been getting closer to each other as they move towards a conjunction — a celestial event where two planets, or a planet and the moon or a planet and a star, appear close to each other in the night sky, according to NASA.

Conjunctions have no real purpose astronomically, however, they are quite a sight to see.

Of course, the two planets aren’t actually going to kiss — or even get close enough to touch.

“They are actually 400 million miles apart,” Jackie Faherty, an astronomer at the American Museum of Natural History, told NPR.

Conjunctions aren’t something that happen every night, but they’re not as rare as one might think.

A Jupiter and Venus conjunction happens about once a year, and conjunctions between other planets happen frequently as celestial bodies orbit around the sun in similar paths. 

According to NASA, the next full moon will be on Tuesday, March 7.

During that full moon, Venus, Jupiter and Mars will all be visible in the night sky.

In related Jupiter news

In late February, astronomers discovered 12 new moons around Jupiter, putting the total count at a record-breaking 92.

That’s more than any other planet in our solar system. Saturn, the one-time leader, comes in a close second with 83 confirmed moons.

The Jupiter moons were added recently to a list kept by the International Astronomical Union’s Minor Planet Center, said Scott Sheppard of the Carnegie Institution, who was part of the team.

They were discovered using telescopes in Hawaii and Chile in 2021 and 2022, and their orbits were confirmed with follow-up observations.

These newest moons range in size from 0.6 miles to 2 miles (1 kilometer to 3 kilometers), according to Sheppard: “I hope we can image one of these outer moons close-up in the near future to better determine their origins.”

In April, the European Space Agency is sending a spacecraft to Jupiter to study the planet and some of its biggest, icy moons. And next year, NASA will launch the Europa Clipper to explore Jupiter’s moon of the same name, which could harbor an ocean beneath its frozen crust.

— With Post wires.