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This Thursday ( Feb. 22 ) , Venus and Mars will appear side by side in the predawn sky , and if you rise ahead of time , you may spot this planetary dancing with the au naturel centre or a pair of opera glasses .

During the ostensibly close encounter , called a erratic conjunction , Venusand Mars will come within about half a degree of each other . Venus , one of the bright object in Earth ’s sky , will easily outshine Mars . While Venus will strike at order of magnitude -3.9 , Mars will reach just magnitude 1.3 , according toIn The Sky . ( The brightest object in the sky have the lowest numbers on this scale , with the Sunday shining at order of magnitude -27 , according toNASA . )

The planet Venus shining brightly over ESO’s Paranal Observatory in Chile at twilight.

Venus shines brightly above the European Southern Observatory’s Paranal Observatory in Chile

Because Mars will be harder to see in the light of dawn , the good elbow room to catch this conjunction is with a twosome ofgood opera glasses . However , you should still be able to see the event with your unaided eyes . Observers in the Northern Hemisphere will be able to see the two planet shine together in the east - southeastward from around one hour before sunrise , withMarsabout the breadth of a full moonlight below Venus , thus forming somewhat of a cosmic El Salvadoran colon in the sky .

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Although the planets look unaired together , they reckon that way only from our linear perspective on Earth , of course . On Feb. 22 , Venus will be 136 million mile ( 219 million km ) from Earth , and Mars will be 208 million mile ( 335 million km ) from our planet . In other words , the two on the face of it side - by - side planets will really be more than 100 million mile apart from each other .

a photo of the night sky with Venus shining brightly

continuative are captivating events , but they are not rarefied in oursolar system . There will be three other erratic conjunctions in 2024 : Jupiter and Uranus ( April 20 ) , Mars and Uranus ( July 16 ) , and Mars and Jupiter ( Aug. 15 ) .

a photo of the night sky that appears like a smiley face

A blurry photo of a crescent shaped rainbow against a black background

An artist�s illustration of the solar system�s planets in alignment.

a photograph of Mars rising behind the moon

A composite image of the rings on Saturn, Uranus and Jupiter

an illustration of Mars

A photograph taken from the Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter, which shows wave-like patterns inside a Mars crater.

An illustration of the hypothetical Planet Nine in the solar system.

a close-up of a storm on Jupiter�s surface

an infrared view of a moon showing surface details through the haze of its atmosphere

an illustration of a base on the moon

An aerial photo of mountains rising out of Antarctica snowy and icy landscape, as seen from NASA�s Operation IceBridge research aircraft.

A tree is silhouetted against the full completed Annular Solar Eclipse on October 14, 2023 in Capitol Reef National Park, Utah.

Screen-capture of a home security camera facing a front porch during an earthquake.

Circular alignment of stones in the center of an image full of stones

Three-dimensional rendering of an HIV virus

Pleased programmer proud of making sentient artificial intelligence ask existential questions.