Planets for Dessert

On April 6, 2000, Jupiter, Saturn, Mars and the

Moon will put on a delightful after-dinner sky show.

The quartet will

converge inside a circle just 9 degrees across. To admire the display, simply go outside after dinner on April 6 and look toward

the southwest sky. Around 8 p.m. local daylight savings time the slender crescent

moon will be easy to spot about 30 degrees above the horizon. The brightest

nearby “star” will be Jupiter. At magnitude -2.1, the giant planet is 8 times

brighter than Saturn, which glows pale yellow less than 3 degrees west of the

Moon. Mars will lie a scant 1.1 degrees north of Jupiter. The red planet

(magnitude 0.3) will be about 3 times fainter than Saturn (magnitude 1.4).

The article on this conjunction also includes a discussion on the May 5, 2000 grand conjunction of the moon and five planets. Will it be apocalyptic, as some predict?