Explanation:
After wandering
about as far from the Sun on the sky as Venus can get,
the brilliant evening star
crossed paths with the
Pleiades
star cluster earlier this week.
The beautiful conjunction was enjoyed by
skygazers
around the world.
Taken on April 2,
this
celestial group photo captures the view from Portal, Arizona, USA.
Also known as the Seven Sisters, even the brighter
naked-eye Pleiades stars are seen to be much fainter than Venus.
And while Venus and the sisters do look star-crossed,
their spiky appearance is the
diffraction
pattern caused by
multiple leaves in the aperture of the telephoto lens.
The last similar conjunction of Venus and Pleiades
occurred nearly 8 years ago.
As it did then,
Venus will again move on to
cross paths with the
disk of the Sun in June.
