MORNING PLANETS: The Great Morning Planet Show of May 2011 is underway. Every morning for the rest of this month, you can see a beautiful gathering of four planets in the eastern sky. They are Mars, Jupiter, Venus and Mercury, shown here on May 1st over Magnetic Island in east Australia:
"This is beautiful sight before dawn," says photographer Liz Gleeson. "Venus and Mercury have been visible for a couple of weeks, but now Mars and Jupiter have joined them for a four-way conjunction."
An animation from Sky & Telescope shows what is in store for the rest of the month. The quartet of worlds will rearrange themselves on a daily basis, forming different shapes in the pre-dawn sky. The best mornings are the ones around May 11th, when Venus and Jupiter converge to form a tight pair. They are so bright, they might fool you into thinking you've witnessed a double supernova beaming through the morning twilight. But, no, it's just the two brightest planets in our own solar system.
Stay tuned for a whole month of morning marvels!
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