"A Heavenly Array..."

...in the southwest Arizona desert sky

December 1st, 2008

at sundown.

The Moon, Venus, and Jupiter...

just hanging out together

waiting patiently for nightfall to arrive to dance the night away...

totally oblivious

to the myriads of twinkling holiday lights

decorating planet Earth below.

It took my breath away.

"Astronomy compels the soul to look upwards

and

leads us from this world to another."
~Plato

Here are some interesting facts about this alignment:

"Though the three celestial objects

will appear to be close together Monday night,

they lie at drastically different distances from Earth.

While the moon is only 252,000 miles away,

Venus is 370 times farther away, at 94 million miles.

And distant Jupiter

lies nearly six times farther away

than Venus, at around 540 million miles. "

"The tables are turned

when we think about the heavenly objects' relative size.

While the moon appears as the largest of the three,

it is really a tiny speck in space

compared to the vast bulk of Venus,

which is again dwarfed by Jupiter,

the largest planet in the solar system.

Jupiter's diameter is 40 times that of the moon."
( Source: Wired Science)