Finding Double Stars

Reported July, 2007

BOSTON (Ivanhoe Broadcast News) -- We all like to wish upon a star. In July, you may think you're wishing on a double star -- but what you're really seeing is Venus and Saturn. The planet Venus is named after the goddess of love and come July first, this earth neighbor will look like it's trying to kiss the planet Saturn in the evening sky.

"They are going to be so close together -- less than a degree apart -- that when you stick out your arm and cover it with your pinky, you can cover them both -- they are that close together," says Kelly Beatty, executive editor of Sky and Telescope Magazine.

That line of sight is actually an optical illusion. "They are not physically close. It's just that as they pass each other through space, from our perspective, they appear to be very close together in the sky," Beatty explains.

Planets circle the sun in orbits that are very far apart, so they can never collide. But as they move across our sky, every so often, one planet will look like it's slowly overtaking another one, creating what seems like a near miss.

"We don't often see things that bright in the sky, that close together. And the funny thing is that in this day and age, we aren't used to looking at the night sky and these things strike us as odd." Through a telescope, Venus will look like tiny a crescent moon and Saturn -- 850-million miles farther away -- will be surrounded by its famous rings.

"Saturn will be a lot fainter than Venus, a hundred-times fainter, but you will still see them … it will look like a double star in the sky," Beatty says. You'll be able to catch that double star if you look up into the western sky soon after the sun goes down. The next time you'll get a clear view of such a celestial treat will be February 1st of 2008.

The American Astronomical Society and the American Meteorological Society contributed to the information contained in the TV portion of this report.

Click here to Go Inside This Science or contact:

Sky Publishing
Cambridge, MA 02140
(866) 644-1377 (U.S.A., Canada)
info@SkyandTelescope.com

For more information about night sky events:

American Meteorological Society
Boston, MA 02108-3693
617-227-2425
http://www.ametsoc.org

American Astronomical Society
Washington, DC 20009-1231
202-328-2010
http://www.aas.org

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