Jupiter and Venus to align as 'spooky eyes' on March 1st

Step outside on a clear night in early March and look west after sunset. If you time it right, you'll see something that hasn't happened quite this way in a while: Jupiter and Venus, the two brightest planets in our solar system, will appear so close together they look like a pair of luminous eyes watching from the darkening sky.

On March 1st, these two worlds will reach their closest approach as seen from Earth. Jupiter, which has been sinking lower toward the horizon night after night, will meet Venus as she climbs higher into the evening air. The gap between them will be no wider than the full moon—close enough that for a moment, the night sky feels almost intimate, almost personal. Astronomers call this a conjunction, though the term understates what you're actually seeing. The two planets won't physically approach each other; Venus will remain 204 million kilometers away while Jupiter sits 864 million kilometers distant. But from our vantage point on Earth, they'll appear to nearly touch.

To find them, look to the western sky after sunset. Mars, now noticeably dimmer than it was a few months ago when it passed closest to Earth, hangs overhead with an orange tint, positioned above and to the right of Orion the Hunter. It will set around 3:30 a.m. local time. Lower down, Jupiter dominates the view—a giant world whose cloud bands and four largest moons become visible through even a modest telescope. It sets around 9:30 p.m. But Venus outshines them both. The brightest of the trio, it's so luminous that in truly dark locations, far from city lights, it can actually cast a faint shadow on a piece of white paper held at arm's length. As March approaches, Venus continues its nightly climb away from the sun's glare, growing more prominent each evening.

The night sky contains hundreds or thousands of distant suns, most of them too faint to notice without optical aid. But five planets are visible to the naked eye against the starfield—the ancient Greeks called them "wanderers" because they move against the background of fixed stars. For the next few weeks, three of them will be on display in the western half of the sky. If you're uncertain where to look, any astronomy app on a smartphone will pinpoint them instantly. But there's something worth doing the old-fashioned way: step outside on a moonless night, give your eyes about fifteen minutes to adjust to the darkness, and simply look up.

Historians have long wondered about the Star of the Magi, the celestial sign that supposedly guided wise men to Bethlehem. One leading theory holds that it was a conjunction much like this one—a moment when Venus and Jupiter drew so close they appeared as a single brilliant object. Such an event occurred on June 17 in the year 2 BC. Whether that was the star the ancients sought remains unknowable, but it's a reminder that humans have always looked to the sky for meaning, for guidance, for wonder. On March 1st, you'll have a chance to see what they saw.