Venus and Mercury meet

Venus is quickly on its way out of the evening sky. However, you can still see it for a little more than an hour after the sun goes down. Each evening, Venus appears lower in the sky. Venus is going through an interesting transformation as it leaves the evening sky. 

As we see it, Venus is getting closer and closer to the sun. Just like the moon, when it is close to the sun, all we see is a thin crescent. Despite being thin, this crescent still shines quite brightly. You could use a pair of simple binoculars to see the crescent of Venus. Venus appears rather large since it is about as close to Earth as it gets. Here is another incredible view that was taken through a powerful telephoto lens. 

On June 3, Venus will pass directly between the Earth and the sun. It will be slightly off center, so it won’t actually cross the solar disc. This does happen, but it’s a rare event. It happens on average of twice every 115 years. The last transit was in June of 2012; there won’t be another until December of 2125. Here is a lovely view of Venus’ last solar transit. 

Back to Venus and Mercury. They will appear side by side during the evening of Thursday, May 21.

Graphic was made using background from inthesky.org

On May 23 and 24, the very thin young moon will pass by Venus and Mercury. You might be able to get an awesome show of the two crescents near each other!