Moon, Venus and Spica meet in a Polish night sky image
Written by AI from science.nasa.gov's report. Not checked by a person.
NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day shows the crescent Moon, Venus and the star Spica close together, in an image captured in Poland above the Tatra Mountains.
NASA's Astronomy Picture of the Day features the crescent Moon, the planet Venus and the star Spica appearing close together in the sky. The image was captured in Poland and shows the Moon above the Tatra Mountains, with bright Venus nearby and a little lower on the horizon. Spica, in the constellation Virgo, is the bright star to the left of Venus.
The accompanying explanation says such meetings are called conjunctions. As planets move relative to the fixed stars, they can appear from our viewpoint to approach other objects. The text says these events do not happen by chance but follow the laws of celestial mechanics. It also notes that the word "planet" comes from the Greek for "wandering star".
According to the explanation, Spica is one of the brightest stars in the sky and lies only about 250 light-years away. It was found in 1890 to be a binary star, made up of two massive blue stars that orbit each other every 4 days. The text adds that earlier this year it was reported that Spica is actually a triple system.
