Udupi: A Whole Week of Celestial Treat for Sky Gazers
Dr A P Bhat
Poorna Prajna College, Udupi
Udupi, Nov 27: A celestial treat awaits sky gazers for a whole week from now.
Astronomy enthusiasts will get an opportunity to see planets Venus and Saturn very close together from Tuesday November 27 early morning.
In the evening planet Jupiter will be very close to full moon and both will be close to the star Aldeberan-Rohini.
Moon is very close to Earth at a distance of 3,84,000 km, but Jupiter is nearly 740 million km from Sun and 590 million km from Earth. The star Rohini is at 66 light years from Earth. One light year is 3 lac ×60 × 60 × 24 × 365 km.
Even Venus is 110 million km from Sun and 40 million km from Earth but Saturn is 1,400 million km from Sun.
In size, Saturn is 1000 times bigger than Venus. Jupiter is 64,000 times bigger than the Moon and the star Rohini is 100 million times bigger than the planet Jupiter.
Strangely though, they will appear nearly the same size and of the same distance when viewed in the sky.
The planets will be visible for a week.