Venus passes below Jupiter during the end of November. Venus is the brighter of the two planets. All the above images are looking South-West.

Over the next few weeks, Jupiter & Venus will be getting closer and closer to each other in the evening sky. As I mentioned in a previous post, they are a beautiful sight in the evening sky, so do make sure that you take a look!

The images to the left show how the two planets are moving in the evening sky. As they orbit around the Sun at different speeds, Venus appears to sweep eastwards, passing beneath Jupiter.

Venus is brighter than Jupiter, due to it being closer and having a much thicker atmosphere - in fact, if you were to stand on Venus, you would be squashed due to the immense pressures involved!

If you have binoculars or a small telescope, take a closer look at Jupiter, and see how many of it's moons you can see. You should be able to see up to four moons, just like Galileo did 400 years ago (although, sometimes they are hidden in front of, or behind, Jupiter).

The two wanderers (as the ancients called the planets) can currently be found in the group of stars known as Sagittarius, the Archer. Another name for this group of stars is the Teapot!

The images to the left have been produced using Stellarium - a wonderful piece of cross-platform software that is very easy to use, and tells you exactly when and where to find things in the night sky.