A “planet parade” is building in the eastern sky before sunrise this week — and the highlight comes on Tuesday, Aug. 12. Best seen about an hour before sunrise, as the peak of the Perseid meteor shower draws to a close, bright planets Jupiter and Venus will appear less than one degree from each other in the eastern sky. Best seen about an hour before sunrise, the close conjunction will occur while Saturn is visible in the south and Mercury begins to become visible below the two bright planets. Although neither are visible to the naked eye, Uranus and Neptune will also be in the sky, creating a six-planet parade.
Venus and Jupiter will come to a close conjunction in the pre-dawn hours of Tuesday, Aug. 12, when the two planets will be just 0.9 degrees apart. That's the width of a little finger held at arm's length.
The two planets will be above east-northeast from an hour or two before sunrise, in the constellation Gemini. Jupiter will be on the left, slightly higher in the sky than Venus.
Venus will shine at -3.9 magnitude and Jupiter at -1.9 magnitude, making cloudy, reflective Venus around six times brighter than Jupiter. However, Jupiter will appear to be about twice as big as Venus.
The following “planet parade” will occur in October 2028, when five planets will be visible together, again before sunrise.
This conjunction is merely a line of sight illusion. After all, we're watching the solar system from a moving platform. During the conjunction, Venus and Jupiter will be around 438 million miles (703 million kilometers) apart, with Jupiter almost five times farther from Earth than Venus. Jupiter, an outer planet, is currently rising higher into the night sky as its gets closer to Earth, becoming brighter, as it orbits the sun on its 12-(Earth) year journey. Venus, on the other hand, is receding from Earth, slowly sinking into the horizon and becoming dimmer as it does so. During the conjunction, Venus will be 115 million miles (186 million kilometers) from Earth and Jupiter 552 million miles (889 million kilometers).
The conjunction of Venus and Jupiter, and the arrival of Mercury, both in the pre-dawn sky, will occur on the same day as the peak of the Perseid meteor shower. This annual display of "shooting stars" will peak overnight on Tuesday, Aug. 12 through Wednesday, Aug. 13. It will likely underwhelm this year because bright moonlight will restrict the view of its 50-75 meteors per hour on the peak night, though skywatchers should still see a healthy amount of the brightest meteors.
After this week’s Venus-Jupiter conjunction, the “planet parade” will intensify, with Mercury becoming easier to see as it rises higher into the pre-dawn sky. Next week, a waning crescent moon will move through the planets, with the “planet parade” drawing to a close around Aug. 26 as Mercury disappears from view, leaving Saturn and Jupiter to gradually brighten as Venus begins to fade.