{"id":1051,"date":"2013-05-19T00:00:43","date_gmt":"2013-05-19T00:00:43","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/?p=1051"},"modified":"2013-05-17T23:29:40","modified_gmt":"2013-05-17T23:29:40","slug":"three-planets-meet-up-and-a-first-of-a-kind-eclipse","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/2013\/05\/19\/three-planets-meet-up-and-a-first-of-a-kind-eclipse\/","title":{"rendered":"Three planets meet up and a first of a kind eclipse"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><em>\u00a0<\/em><em>\u00a1SkyCaramba! Astronomy blog for the week ending May 25, 2013<\/em><\/p>\n<p><strong>Three planets meet up<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/2013\/05\/19\/three-planets-meet-up-and-a-first-of-a-kind-eclipse\/planets-animated-3-2\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1052\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignleft size-full wp-image-1052\" title=\"Planets animated 3\" src=\"http:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Planets-animated-3.gif\" alt=\"\" width=\"225\" height=\"225\" srcset=\"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Planets-animated-3.gif 225w, https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Planets-animated-3-150x150.gif 150w\" sizes=\"(max-width: 225px) 100vw, 225px\" \/><\/a>In the next few nights, three planets that haven\u2019t met up in two years are coming together in the evening sky. On May 21, Mercury will be just below Venus which will be below Jupiter. All three will be almost in a straight line. From night to night, Venus is moving upward and Mercury appears to be in hot pursuit of it.<\/p>\n<p>On the 24<sup>th<\/sup>, Venus and Mercury are side by side. Then Mercury passes Venus. The three planets are in a triangle on the 26<sup>th<\/sup>. On the 27<sup>th<\/sup>, you\u2019ll see that Mercury has passed the other two. It will continue rising above them while Venus and Jupiter get very close on the 28<sup>th<\/sup>.<\/p>\n<p>On the 29<sup>th<\/sup>, the three are in nearly a straight line again. This time Mercury is above them both, Venus is second, and Jupiter is just below Venus. Jupiter drops into the sunset after that, while Mercury and Venus continue upward.<\/p>\n<p>This is a convenient time to see Mercury, because easily recognizable Venus is close by. Many people have trouble recognizing Mercury when it\u2019s not close to something else easily identified.<\/p>\n<p>The last time these three planets were together was in May 2011 and Mars was with them in the morning sky. The three will be together again without Mars for three Augusts in a row: 2014, 2015, and 2016.<\/p>\n<p>If you look at the three planets in our meetup this month, you\u2019ll see Mercury in nearly full phase getting bigger every night as it comes around from the far side of the sun. It\u2019ll be pretty much the same with Venus, although its change in size won\u2019t be nearly as much from night to night.<\/p>\n<p><strong>A first of a kind eclipse<\/strong><\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/2013\/05\/19\/three-planets-meet-up-and-a-first-of-a-kind-eclipse\/lunar_eclipse_chart_close-2013may25-2\/\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-1054\"><img decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\" class=\"alignright size-thumbnail wp-image-1054\" title=\"Lunar_eclipse_chart_close-2013May25\" src=\"http:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-content\/uploads\/2013\/05\/Lunar_eclipse_chart_close-2013May251-150x150.png\" alt=\"\" width=\"150\" height=\"150\" \/><\/a>If you have clear skies the night of May 24 to 25, you\u2019ll want to try to see a special event. It\u2019ll be the first of 71 related lunar eclipses in a Saros. Now through 3275, this eclipse will replay, getting longer and deeper. The first ones will be penumbral eclipses in which the moon passes through the outer part of Earth\u2019s shadow. Then, there will be partial eclipses in which the moon passes partially through the inner part of Earth\u2019s shadow. Then, there will be total eclipses followed by several centuries during which we return to having penumbral eclipses and then no eclipses at all.<\/p>\n<p>The last time anyone got to see the start of a Saros for lunar eclipses was in 1984. The next time will be 2096. It will be hard. Just 1% of the moon\u2019s surface close to the southernmost part of the lunar disk will darken or discolor just a little bit. The eclipse maximum will be at 04:10 on May 25 Universal Time. Most of the Americas and western Africa will get to see this one. So will eastern parts of the Pacific Ocean and most of the Atlantic.<\/p>\n<p>\u00a1SkyCaramba!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>\u00a0\u00a1SkyCaramba! Astronomy blog for the week ending May 25, 2013 Three planets meet up In the next few nights, three planets that haven\u2019t met up in two years are coming together in the evening sky. On May 21, Mercury will be just below Venus which will be below Jupiter. All three will be almost in &hellip; <a href=\"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/2013\/05\/19\/three-planets-meet-up-and-a-first-of-a-kind-eclipse\/\" class=\"more-link\">Continue reading <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Three planets meet up and a first of a kind eclipse<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[141,5,140,25,4,385,317,17],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1051"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1051"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1051\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1056,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1051\/revisions\/1056"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1051"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1051"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.skycaramba.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1051"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}