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Tonight, when the sun goes down, go outside and look west. Venus and Jupiter are beautifully close together in the twilight sky. They're converging for a tight conjunction on June 8-9. Watch the distance shrink every night this week. Sky maps: June 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10, 11, 12, 13, 14, 15, 16, 17. Free: Space Weather Newsletter
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Mercury and Mars are converging for a conjunction in the constellation Libra. The action is happening too close to the sun to see with the human eye, but coronagraphs on the Solar and Heliospheric Observatory (SOHO) are getting a great view of the action:  At closest approach on Oct. 29th, the two planets will be only 20 arcminutes apart--a remarkable pair. If this were happening in a dark night sky, it would be headline news.
In a few months, it will be headline news. Mars and Mercury will loop around the sun for another even closer conjunction on January 27, 2024. During the event, the planets will be only 12 arcminutes apart--almost as close as Jupiter and Saturn were during the Great Conjunction of 2020. Both planets will be visible to the naked eye in the morning sky just before sunrise. Stay tuned. www.spaceweather.com The European Space Agency is about to launch a very important spacecraft: The Jupiter Icy Moons Explorer - 'Juice' for short. Its mission is to probe Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, moons with oceans larger than those of Earth and possible habitats for extraterrestrial life. Liftoff is scheduled for April 13th (12:15 UT) from French Guiana. "It may be possible for experienced observers to photograph Juice as it recedes on the night after launch", says John H. Rogers, the Jupiter Section Director of the British Astronomical Association. "The solar panels should be deployed by 100 minutes after launch, with full deployment over the next 17 days. You can obtain an ephemeris from JPL-Horizons. Type 'Juice' in for the target body."  "The best views will be from the Far East and Australia, from about 14:00 UT onwards, when solar panels are deployed", says Rogers. "The brightness will then diminish as the distance from Earth increases; by the time it is visible from western Europe, approaching 150,000 km out, one experienced observer suggests that it might be around mag.13 or 14."
Juice will take 8 years to reach Jupiter. After a series of visits to Callisto and Europa, Juice will enter into a permanent orbit around Ganymede in 2034 - the first time a spacecraft has ever held an orbit around a moon other than our own. Bigger than the planet Mercury, Ganymede is also the only moon in the solar system with its own magnetic field, providing a possible protective cocoon for life. www.spaceweather.com The 3-day mutual conjunction of Venus, Jupiter and the Moon witnessed by sunset sky watchers around the world is over. Here is how it ended on Feb. 23rd:  "The Moon rose above the planetary duo of Jupiter and Venus to create a beautiful line in the western sky," says Petr Horálek, who took the picture from Thoddoo, Maldives. "Cirrus clouds appeared and beautifully magnified the dramatic colors of sunset. It was a very romantic moment."
The Moon is exiting, but the show's not over. Venus and Jupiter are still converging. At closest approach on March 1st, they will be just 0.5 degrees apart--a beautiful pairing and one of the best astrophoto-ops of 2023. Look west at sunset. https://spaceweather.com/ Stunning photo shows every visible planet in the solar system lining up across the night sky30/12/2022 Fiona Jackson, Daily Mail; Fri, 30 Dec 2022 16:12 UTC  © Dr Gianluca Masi Dr Gianluca Masi took the image from the roof of the building where he lives last night, using a camera with special lenses. It shows Venus, Mercury, Saturn, Jupiter, Mars and the Moon Stargazers have been capturing some spectacular images of a rare astronomical event that means every planet in the solar system is visible in the night sky at the same time. Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn can all be seen with the naked eye, while Uranus and Neptune are possible to spot with binoculars or a telescope. Astronomer Dr Gianluca Masi shared a picture he took of the five planets that could be seen with the naked eye, while other skywatchers across the world also captured images of the 'planet parade'. He took it from the roof of a building in Rome, Italy last night, using a camera with special lenses.  © MailOnline The solar system will put on a show for space fans for the next two evenings, with all seven planets other than Earth visible in the night sky Starting from the southwestern horizon and moving east, photos show Venus, Mercury, Saturn, Jupiter and Mars in that order. All seven other planets in our solar system will continue to be visible for the next two nights, with only Uranus and Neptune requiring a telescope or binoculars to be seen.
Dr Masi, who works with the Virtual Telescope Project, told MailOnline: 'The opportunity to see all the planetary family at a glance does not happen often. 'We can get a better idea of the cosmic place where we live by looking at the other planets. We have just a couple of days to look at this parade, before Mercury will disappear into the solar glare.' This week, Twitter users from across the globe, including Japan and the US, have been sharing photos of the spectacle online. The phenomenon is known to occur about once every two years. All planets appeared in the night sky as small points of light to stargazers in the northern hemisphere. Mercury is the hardest planet to see without magnification, as it is sitting in a bright part of the sky, however it can be spotted close to the much brighter Venus which outshines it by 70 times. Tonight, the two reach conjunction - their closest point - at 21:00 GMT (16:00 ET), and they won't appear this close again until 2024. Mars is supposed to be red. But when amateur astronomer Thomas Williamson looked on Oct. 26th, he saw a different color. "The north pole was electric blue," he says.  Williamson photographed the North Polar Hood, a giant cloud of water ice that forms over the Martian north pole during winter. Why blue? That's the color of sunlight scattered from very tiny crystals of ice (smaller than the wavelength of light itself) floating in the cloud.
"Mars was amazing through my binoviewers on my 12.5-inch f/5.1 Newtonian at about 400x!" says Williamson. "I'm looking forward to the next few weeks as Mars increases in apparent size." Indeed the view is about to improve as Earth and Mars converge for a close encounter on Dec. 1st. Between now and then, Mars will double in brightness to magnitude -1.9 (brighter than Sirius) and increase in size to 17.2 arcseconds. Look for the Red Planet and its blue hood rising in the east after sunset in the constellation Taurus: sky map. https://spaceweather.com/ The first pictures from Juno's flyby of Europa on Sept 29th have arrived on Earth, and they are beautiful. At closest approach, the spacecraft was only 219 miles (352 km) above the ocean moon's icy crust, revealing cryovolcanic ridges, strangely curvaceous fractures, and frozen "rafts."  Credit: NASA/SwRI/MSSS/Navaneeth Krishnan S This is only the third close pass in history below 310 miles (500 kilometers) altitude and the closest look at Europa any spacecraft has gotten since Jan. 3, 2000, when NASA’s Galileo spacecraft came within 218 miles (351 kilometers) of the surface.
At closest approach, Juno was directly above a region of chaos terrain called "Annwn Regio" where rafts of ice had previously broken free and re-frozen. Researchers suspect that water from beneath Annwn Regio must be breaking through from time to time. Researchers will be looking carefully at these images to see if anything has changed since Galileo visited 20+ years ago. www.spaceweather.com LeeHarrisEnergy
Pam Gregory, acclaimed astrologist and author, shares with Lee how deep space astrology is showing a new map of the current shift in consciousness and galactic evolution - and the impact that can have for us as human beings living through this time, in this excerpt from their interview for the Impact the World podcast. For the full episode, please visit: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PY69M... Greetings
All life is created naturally from the processes and the elements that you all see every day. The same periodic table of elements, plus or minus the ones you might not have discovered yet, is present everywhere in your galaxy. The same things that created your life on your Earth created life everywhere. You have that in common with all the stars and planets. The elements are the same, and the energy reactions in science are the same. When you put them together with the same kinds of sizes of suns, gravity, atmospheric changes and water, what you get is... many Earths and life. How could it be otherwise, you might say? How could you look at the stars and say that you’re totally and completely alone, simply because no one has yet said hello? That, by the way, is a common theory: "Since nobody has ever said hello, therefore, they don’t exist." This is a theory arrived at by some very intelligent people. There’s a reason they haven’t said "hello". They’re out there, dear ones. Slowly, as the Universe cooled and the Galaxies formed the way you see them today, the stars (and the planets around their stars) began to develop. And within that naturally evolving physical scenario, the scheme of life began – everywhere. To think otherwise would be counterintuitive to the natural way of things that you even see on Earth. ~ Kryon, Excerpt channeled by Lee Carroll on October 11, 2020, for the Lemurian Starseed Gathering. Pam talks about some of the themes and context for 2021.
You can download a free birthchart from my website www.pamgregory.com, then purchase this two-part tutorial video series that explains how to find this points in your chart and what it means for you: https://gumroad.com/l/FHjOZ. 
"You've heard of a green flash on the sun. But a green flash on Jupiter? "I've never come across one before," says atmospheric optics expert Les Cowley. Until now, that is. Spanish astrophotographer Juan Manuel Perez Rayego captured the rare phenomenon on Dec. 26th:
"I was taking one last photo of the Great Conjunction between Jupiter and Venus, just saying goodbye," says Rayego. "Suddenly, a green fragment of Jupiter split off and floated away from the planet. It was spectacular. I've analyzed Juan's image and conclude that it is very likely a mock mirage--the same type of mirage that can create green flashes on the sun," says Cowley.
Mock mirages are caused by atmospheric temperature inversions, in which layers of air are warmer than usual. An extra 1 or 2 degrees Celsius is all it takes. Inversion layers can be quite close to ground. Indeed, Jupiter was only 1/3rd of a degree above the horizon of Arroyo de San Serván, Spain, when Rayego recorded the flash.
The low altitude of Jupiter is why the planet looked like a rainbow-colored smear when the flash occurred. The low atmosphere acts like a prism, spreading the light of stars and planets into their R-G-B components. In this wider-angle animation, Saturn may be seen as well (lower right). It too looks like a miniature rainbow, albeit without the green flash. www.spaceweather.com Something special is happening in the sunset sky. It's a Great Conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn. The two giant planets are converging for a close encounter the likes of which have not been seen since the Middle Ages. Shahrin Ahmad of Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia, photographed the pair on Dec. 7th:  "Jupiter and Saturn are about 1.5º apart this evening, " says Ahmad. "Even under a light polluted sky, both can easily be seen." They're about to get much closer. On Dec. 21st, the two planets will lie just 0.1 degrees apart. That's so close, some people will perceive them as a single brilliant star. Viewed through binoculars or a small telescope, ringed Saturn will appear as close to Jupiter as some of Jupiter's moons:  Although Great Conjunctions between Jupiter and Saturn occur every 20 years, they're not all easy to see. Often the two planets are hidden in the glare of the sun. This year is special because the conjunction happens comfortably away from the sun. In fact, the last time the two worlds were so close together and so easy to see was the year 1226, astronomer Michael Brown told the Washington Post.
The show is underway. Jupiter and Saturn are already a tight pair in the evening sky, and they will grow rapidly and noticeably closer together every night for the next two weeks. Dates of special interest include Dec. 16th and 17th, when the crescent Moon joins the planets, and, of course, Dec. 21st when they are almost touching. Sky maps: Dec. 16, 17; Dec. 21. www.spaceweather.com Jupiter and Saturn to appear as brilliant star or ‘double planet’ in night sky this Christmas28/11/2020 Jupiter and Saturn will come closer to each other in the Earth's night sky than they have for almost a millennium between December 16 and 25 in an extremely rare astronomical extravaganza. The pair will be separated by one fifth the diameter of a full moon as viewed from the Earth, in an extraordinary astronomical proximity event which has not occurred for 800 years.
The planets will appear as a singular point of brilliant light or a “double planet” to anyone lucky enough to have clear skies at the time of their yuletide rendezvous “Alignments between these two planets are rather rare, occurring once every 20 years or so, but this conjunction is exceptionally rare because of how close the planets will appear to one another,” says astronomer Patrick Hartigan from Rice University. For context, their previous closest celestial encounter on record (as we see them anyway) was on March 4, 1226. As always, the best viewing conditions will be near the equator but, with clear enough skies, it should be visible from anywhere on Earth about an hour after sunset each evening. Stargazers should point their telescopes toward the western sky, especially during the closest approach on December 21, when the pair will appear as a “double planet.” “For most telescope viewers, each planet and several of their largest moons will be visible in the same field of view that evening,” Hartigan adds. The viewing window will be shorter for those in the northern hemisphere, however, so stargazers are encouraged to make preparations well in advance and head out early to avoid missing the mesmerizing meeting. Their next astronomical alignment is expected in March 2080 and then again in 2400. https://www.rt.com/news/507528-jupiter-saturn-alignment-double-planet/ Read also: https://www.iceagenow.info/jupiter-and-saturn-about-to-do-something-not-seen-since-the-year-1226/ This could be NASA's most exciting mission--ever. The space agency announced yesterday that they will send a heliocopter to Titan, Saturn's largest moon. Titan is in many ways more like Earth than any other place in the solar system. It has rivers and lakes, a thick atmosphere, and organic compounds that could support the genesis of life. The quad-chopper, named "Dragonfly," will fly between sites on interest, covering more than twice the distance of every Mars rover combined. Get the full story from nasa.gov.
www.spaceweather.com The biggest storm in the solar system is shrinking. Since mid-May, Jupiter's Great Red Spot has contracted a startling 3000 km, reducing the size of the anti-cyclone by nearly 20%. This 10-day movie created by Marco Vedovato of the JUPOS Project shows what's happening:  Enormous rivulets of red gas are streaming away from the storm as it spins. "This is something we've never seen before," says Vedovato, who assembled the animation by stitching together images from nearly a dozen amateur astronomers. Experienced observers say the storm is "getting a new shape every day" in a "dramatic metamorphasis" as the Red Spot "appears to be unravelling." "The JUPOS Project manages the largest Jupiter database in the world," says Vedovato. "So far we have collected more than 1 million measurements, including old images and drawings from the 18th century, allowing us to plot very precise trends in the Great Red Spot." This plot, for instance, shows the sudden decrease in the storm's diameter since early May.  Jupiter rising over Bluff, Utah. Photo credit: Paul Martini Consider it a case of perfect timing. Jupiter is about to make its annual closest approach to Earth--"only" 641 million km away on June 12th. Proximity makes the planet big and bright, shining almost four times brighter than Sirius, the brightest star in the sky. Astrophotographers are getting a fantastic view of the GRS.
Finding Jupiter is easy. Look southeast at midnight. Jupiter is located in the constellation Ophiuchus, the brightest object around: sky map. www.spaceweather.com |
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