Whenever the moon and one of the bright planets have a close
encounter in our sky, an event called a conjunction, it’s always
an eye-catching spectacle. On Jan. 21, Jupiter and the moon will
pair up for a very close conjunction, even closer than the one
between the moon and Venus, shown here, during their Feb. 27,
2009, conjunction. Tuesday, January 15, 2013 Jimmy Westlake's
Celestial News column appears Tuesdays in the Steamboat Today.
Find more columns by Westlake here. After the sun goes down Jan.
21, step outside and marvel at the 10-day-old waxing gibbous
moon and the dazzling planet Jupiter sitting side by side. The
two will be less than 1 degree apart for most of the early
evening. In fact, when the duo are at their closest at about
8:30 p.m., you barely would be able to squeeze another moon
between them. Of course, the apparent closeness of Jupiter and
the moon is just a line-of-sight effect. The moon only is
250,000 miles away from Earth, while Jupiter is 1,600 times
farther off in the distance, 414