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Moon & Venus To Put On Post-Christmas Sky Show

December 27, 2011 by · Comments Off on Moon & Venus To Put On Post-Christmas Sky Show 

Moon & Venus To Put On Post-Christmas Sky ShowMoon & Venus To Put On Post-Christmas Sky Show, Looking for some post-Christmas celestial wonder? Then look up tonight starting just before sunset, because the moon and Venus are putting on a show to the west.

“The action begins shortly before sunset, around 4:30 pm to 5 p.m., just as the sky is assuming its evening hue,” according to NASA Science News,

“This is a wonderful time to look; there are very few sights in the heavens as splendid as Venus and the Moon gathered close and surrounded by twilight blue,” writes NASA expert Tony Phillips.

Venus will glisten in the deepening twilight, just to the left of an “exquisitely slender” crescent moon, he said.

But stick with the show for a bit longer, because the beauty of the moon brightens, thanks to something called “Earthshine,” or “the Da Vinci glow.”

Here’s how Phillips describes it:

“As the sky fades to black, a ghostly image of the full Moon materializes within the horns of the lunar crescent. This is caused by Earthshine, a delicate veil of sunlight reflected from our own blue planet onto the dusty-dark lunar terrain.

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