Indeed, when we look towards the southwest in the early evening, the very bright star is Venus. Saturn follows quite closely and will be overtaken by Venus between January 16 and 22.
“A passage from right to left, according to our perspective,” completes Roland Boninsegna.
Towards the southeast, Jupiter shines particularly brightly. And finally, a little further east, Mars appears slightly reddish.
“When we connect these four planets by fictitious lines, we obtain an ecliptic“, continues our enthusiast. Translate: an area in which the planets of the solar system move.
We also learn that two other planets are observable in this same period, but only with an astronomical telescope: Uranus and Neptune. The four aforementioned stars will remain visible to the naked eye until the end of January. Then it will be harder to see Saturn.
And Roland Boninsegna concludes: “All this observation was essential in History. This is how we realized that the Earth was round and that the planets revolve around the Sun and not the other way around. It is also thanks to this that navigators were able to cross seas and continents.“
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