Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Tuesday, March 13th.  The sun will rise at 7:57.  It’ll be up for 11 hours and 49 minutes, setting at 7:46.   The moon, 1 day before last quarter, will rise at 2:38 tomorrow morning.

Tonight the planet Jupiter will begin to tuck under Venus coming from the left as they appear together in the west after sunset.  Venus and Jupiter are the two brightest planets seen in the sky.  Venus is the brightest for two reasons.  Number one, its close to us.  It is actually the closest planet to the earth.  When it passes between us and the sun June 5th, it will be only 26.8 million miles away.  That’s a bit farther than normal, since the earth will be a month away from its farthest point from the sun.  Also Venus’ sulfuric acid cloud tops reflect most of the light it receives from the sun.  Jupiter is bright due to its great size with a surface area over 120 times that of the earth.  Still sunlight is diluted to one twenty fifth that of  earth.

* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Jupiter and Venus at nightly intervals from March 12 to 16, 2012. Created using Stellarium.

Tonight’s position of the planets is the second frame of the animation.