All tagged Astronomy
We now know that comets – small icy bodies left over from the formation of the solar system – pass by Earth regularly. Astronomers discover dozens of them each year. Most of us are unaware that this is happening overhead because only rarely does a comet become bright enough to see with the unaided eye. This May, however, we may be fortunate enough to see a rare naked-eye comet. Or we may not.
New Occasional Feature
I’ve been noticing that Venus is very bright in the western sky after sunset. For the next few weeks, you can look for it between dusk and about 8 p.m., above and to the left of the place the sun has just set. Venus always appears near the sun in the sky. This is because Venus’s orbit is smaller than Earth’s, so when we’re looking toward the sun, we see them close to each other.
