Tonight, June 9, Venus and Jupiter will appear just 1.6 degrees apart in the western sky during twilight, about three times the width of a full moon, and close enough to fit inside a standard pair of binoculars. The nights on either side will look nearly identical, so don’t stress if clouds roll in.
To put that distance in perspective: hold up a single index finger at arm’s length. That’s the gap. Both planets will be visible to the naked eye, no gear required. Your best window is roughly 45 minutes to two hours after sunset, and you’ll want a clear view of the western horizon, according to Live Science.
Here’s the part that’ll mess with your head a little: the whole thing is an optical illusion. Venus and Jupiter aren’t actually anywhere near each other. Venus sits about 1.2 astronomical units from Earth right now; Jupiter is about six. One AU equals the distance between Earth and the sun, which means Jupiter is five times farther away than it looks relative to Venus. The solar system is just doing what it does, and we happen to be standing in a spot where the geometry looks impressive.
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The reason they’re converging comes down to orbital speed. Venus laps the sun in about 225 days. Earth takes 365. Jupiter takes nearly 12 years. Right now, Earth is pulling away from Jupiter fast enough that the gas giant is slowly sinking in our evening sky, and will disappear into the sun’s glare entirely by July 29. Venus, meanwhile, is gaining on Earth, rising higher and brighter as summer goes on. The two planets are heading in opposite directions, and tonight is when their paths in the sky cross.
Venus also has the brightness advantage by a significant margin — 7.5 times brighter than Jupiter during the conjunction, when it’ll shine at -3.9 magnitude compared to Jupiter’s -1.7. The reason comes down to cloud cover: Venus is wrapped in thick layers that reflect sunlight far more efficiently than Jupiter’s atmosphere.
If you have binoculars or a backyard telescope, there’s more to see: Jupiter’s four large Galilean moons—Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Callisto—will appear as faint dots flanking the planet. A decent camera can get both planets in a single frame.
The next one on the calendar is November 15, when Jupiter and Mars will close to within 1.2 degrees of each other before sunrise.
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