Weather permitting, observers in Israel will have the opporunity to see a beautiful triple conjunction of Venus, Mars and the new crescent moon of Adar on Friday evening, February 20, at dusk. The three celestical bodies will then be within half a degree of each other in the western sky. Half a degree is the diameter of the full moon in the sky. Such close approaches make for very memorable and beautiful displays. Of course, these celestial bodies only appear close together as they align in our line of sight in the sky. The moon is about 230,000 miles away, Mars about 142 million miles away, while Venus is 67 million miles away.
The next night, Saturday February 21, the crescent moon will have moved to the upper left of Venus and Mars, but the two planets will remain impressively close together for the rest of the month. See if you can distinguish them by color. Venus is creamy white, Mars a pale red.
