Have you noticed bright lights in the western sky, soon after
sunset? Maybe you heard something somewhere about a planetary
alignment. Maybe the Weekly World News you glanced at (first
looking around to make sure nobody was watching) in the checkout
line said something about the alignment, Bat Boy, Mel Gibson and
the Mayan Calendar Apocalypse. Well, there are some pretty
goings on in the western sky, at least that much is true. Here’s
the skinny: The planets Venus and Jupiter, easily noticeable
since they are two of the brightest “stars” in the night sky,
are approaching each other, or rather, they appear to be
approaching each other from our vantage point, and they’ll
appear to draw nearer to one another until March 14th, when
we’ll all start to get really suspicious that something is going
on between those two. Here’s a representation of the relative
positions of the planets on February 24th. This model is based
on the Copernican model, which places the sun at the center of
the solar system (and placed Gali