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Heavenly Merger: Venus and Jupiter Become One Under a Full Moon
This year’s evening show continues on Wednesday July 1, when the “dazzling planets stand side by side in the west, still with just a full moon’s width between them,” http://astronomy.com/ says. Watching over them will be the full moon, the first of two coming in July. “Only the full moon itself—climbing higher in the southeastern sky this evening—appears brighter.”
That moon becomes full at precisely 10:20 p.m. EDT. As for Venus and Jupiter, we will not see the likes of this for more than a year, says http://earthsky.org/
“Venus and Jupiter both appear bright in Earth’s sky because the cloud cover on these worlds effectively reflects sunlight,” says Earthsky.org. “Although Jupiter is so much farther off than Venus, Jupiter’s sheer size guarantees the king planet’s brilliance. This is their closest pairing in the evening sky until August 27, 2016.”