Look Up This Month as Mars and Venus Appear to Come Together

Venus and Mars are due to merge into one in the skies for a brief moment later this month, in an uncommonly close approach of our two planetary neighbors.

In the early hours of February 22, the two planets will appear to become one as their paths cross relative to Earth. They are only half a degree apart at their closest point in the constellation of Capricornus, in the eastern skies.

Unfortunately, this phenomenon won't be visible for most of the United States. The two planets will be at their highest point in the sky during the daytime and only appear around 3 degrees above the horizon at dawn in New York and 5 degrees above the horizon in Los Angeles, according to in-the-sky.org.

This close approach of Mars and Venus is technically called an appulse, which is when two celestial bodies appear to reach the closest apparent distance possible between them, as seen from a third object—in this case, Earth. This is slightly different from conjunction, which is a term for a close passing of two objects at the same right ascension, or equivalent of longitude on the Earth's surface, projected onto the celestial sphere. Venus and Mars will also have a conjunction on the same day, but a few hours later.

The two planets are actually nowhere near each other: Venus is around 129,000,000 miles away from us currently, while Mars is 213,000,000 miles away. The reason that they appear so close in the night sky is because they are both on the other side of the sun to the Earth. Mercury is also passing near the other two planets in the sky but isn't quite as close. Mars and Mercury came into conjunction with each other on January 27.

Venus will appear much brighter than Mars to those who can see the planets, with Venus having a magnitude of -3.9 compared to Mars's 1.3.

"Astronomers use a magnitude system, which is 'backwards'—brighter objects have smaller magnitudes," Meredith L. Rawls, an astronomy research scientist in the Department of Astronomy and DiRAC at the University of Washington, previously told Newsweek.

"There are only about six stars that are brighter in the night sky than this. For context, the way magnitudes work is something that is magnitude 2 is only about 40 percent as bright as something that is magnitude 1. The unaided eye can see objects down to about magnitude 7 from a very dark site. Venus' apparent magnitude in the sky is about -4 (it's extremely bright!)."

The sun has a magnitude of -27, while the full moon peaks at -13. Sirius and Antares, two of the brightest stars in the sky, have magnitudes of −1 and 1, respectively.

For those who cannot spot these two celestial bodies coming together in the skies, don't fret: this event happens around once a year. Venus and Saturn are due to make a very close approach on March 21, but this may also be too far below the horizon to be visible from the U.S.

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