Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Ephemeris for Friday, March 16th.  The sun will rise at 7:52.  It’ll be up for 11 hours and 58 minutes, setting at 7:50.   The moon, 2 days past last quarter, will rise at 5:02 tomorrow morning.

Now that the conjunction of Jupiter and Venus us over, what happens next?  Well, Jupiter will continue to head westward toward the sun, and soon will be caught up into twilight.  Its and principally the earths motion will move it behind the sun on May 13th.  Venus still has 11 days before it reaches its greatest elongation from the sun, then it too will appear to head back toward the sun.  It will actual cross in front of the sun on the evening of June 5th, where we will see the first part of the extremely rare transit of Venus.  These transits occur in pairs 8 years apart separated by more than a century.  The last was in 2004, the next will occur in 2117.   Observations of these in the 18th century helped determine the distance to the sun.

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

Addendum

The planets at 11 p.m. March 14, 2012. Created using Stellarium.

The last step of the animation shows Jupiter and Venus tonight.