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Venus And The Moon Will 'Kiss' In A Rare Moment This Week

Venus And The Moon Will 'Kiss' In A Rare Moment This Week

This celestial moment will occur on Thursday evening.

Lauren Bell

Lauren Bell

If you love to witness rare occurrences in the night sky, you better clear your diary for Thursday as Venus and the moon will appear to kiss.

If the sky is clear on Thursday, you should be able to see this celestial sight with the naked eye - so no you don't need to even invest in a telescope. In fact a telescope isn't wide enough to enable you to view it all anyway.

Venus is always the brightest planet and often the first 'star' visible in the sky after twilight. It is however particularly visible on the western horizon between January 1st and May 24th as it's moving away from the sun, climbing higher in the sky.

This means it's not too hard to spot right now - especially when you have the moon as a marker.

So on Thursday evening, you need to look southwest in the sky soon after sunset and you will see the four-day-old moon in a crescent shape appearing to touch or 'kiss' Venus.

Astronomer Dr Sheila Kanani from the Royal Astronomical Society advises: "On Thursday evening look for the crescent moon.

"Venus is a bright dot at the top and on the right of the crescent.

"You don't need any special equipment, this phenomenon will be observable by the naked eye. You will, however, need clear skies, which sadly is less likely!"

Venus is the most visible planet to the naked eye (
Wikimedia)

They will be the two brightest objects in the night sky.

And whilst Venus might look like a star, it will always appear as a more steady constant disc of light when compared to other stars in the sky.

If you live in London, the pair will become visible around 5.56pm, in Manchester from 6.02pm and Edinburgh from 6.03pm, according to In The Sky. Check your location here.

But why are they so close together you may ask? They're actually not, they just appear to be and in fact are really far away from each other, according to astronomer Dr Kanani.

The moon will be in a crescent shape on Thursday as it'll be the fourth day of the lunar cycle (
Unsplash)

She says: "Venus and the moon appear to touch because of the geometry of the solar system.

"The planets orbit around the sun along roughly the same path, a line we call the equatorial.

"The moon orbits around the earth on a similar path, so it makes sense that now and again the moon and the planets will appear to cross paths.

"On Thursday Venus and the moon do just this, although they're actually millions of kilometres away from each other."

It'll certainly give us something a bit different to do on Thursday night - we'll have to enjoy that wine at home instead of heading to the pub whilst we look out for it.

Featured Image Credit: Pixabay

Topics: Science, Life