Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                                2020 April 2

                       Venus and the Pleiades in April
       Digital Illustration Credit & Copyright: Fred Espenak (Bifrost
                          Astronomical Observatory)

   Explanation: Venus is currently the brilliant evening star. Shared
   around world, in tonight's sky Venus will begin to wander across the
   face of the lovely Pleiades star cluster. This digital sky map
   illustrates the path of the inner planet as the beautiful conjunction
   evolves, showing its position on the sky over the next few days. The
   field of view shown is appropriate for binocular equipped skygazers but
   the star cluster and planet are easily seen with the naked-eye. As
   viewed from our fair planet, Venus passed in front of the stars of the
   Seven Sisters 8 years ago, and will again 8 years hence. In fact,
   orbiting the Sun 13 Venus years are almost equal to 8 years on planet
   Earth. So we can expect our sister planet to visit nearly the same
   place in our sky every 8 years.

                     Tomorrow's picture: pixels in space
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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                      A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC
                             & Michigan Tech. U.

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