It will require an early start, but aspiring astronomers who get up and train their eyes on the eastern sky before sunrise will be able to see Jupiter, Venus and Mars form a triangle in the sky on Monday.
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The sunset conjunction of Jupiter and Venus in 2012 was visible nearly no matter where you lived on Earth. The current planetary trio is the closest grouping of Venus, Mars and Jupiter since May 27, 2013, and will happen next only in January, 2021.
Year 2015 has been a great year for sky gazers. They will look much brighter than surrounding stars.
Jupiter is the second-brightest planet visible to us and is about 25 times brighter than the Mars.
Binoculars could also reveal four of Jupiter’s moons – Io, Ganymede, Europa and Callisto – if held steady by a tripod or leaning on something, NASA added.
The planets in solar system orbit the sun at different speeds which depend on the distance between the sun and the planet.
Venus will be just a little more than 1 degree from Jupiter in the sky, meaning that the two bright planets will be incredibly close. The further away they are, the slower they go.
Venus is just over 56 million miles from Earth and takes only a fraction of one of our years – 225 days – to make one orbit of the Sunday. Hence, when looking at the sky, what we see is a narrow edge of the planetary plane. On Monday, Jupiter and Venus will be in a tight gathering, rising together in the east about 3:20 a.m., and will be almost halfway up in the east as day breaks at 6 a.m. Jupiter will only be about one degree (the width of two full moons) to the left of Venus. And a planetary trio is even more special. After the sun and the moon, Venus and Jupiter rank as the third-brightest and fourth-brightest celestial bodies in space.
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Therefore, to spot mars, stargazers may have to get up before sunrise. The two planets, Jupiter and Venus, are situated in the Leo constellation. As bonus, a few might even spot Mercury, a fourth planet over the horizon as the darkness subsides.
