PICK OF THE WEEK
Pick of The Week
Planets Dancing Close (September 30, 2004)
Hi-res TIF image (2.5M)
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Last week we observed and described a new dance of the planets in which
Jupiter, Mars and Mercury would be passing close by each other in the
coming week. As predicted, Jupiter overtook Mars, moving from right to
left. Mercury came into the celestial scene on Sept. 26 from the right
side. This image shows them quite near each other, at about their closest
proximity on September 29. Of course, the planets themselves are millions
of miles away from each other (Jupiter is over 400 million miles away from
Mercury), but they appear visually aligned as seen from SOHO.s view near
Earth-Sun line of sight.
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SOHO began its Weekly Pick some time after sending a weekly image or video clip to the American Museum of Natural History (Rose Center) in New York City. There, the SOHO Weekly Pick is displayed with some annotations on a large plasma display. If your institution would also like to receive the same Weekly Pick from us for display (usually in Photoshop or QuickTime format), please send your inquiry to steele.hill@gsfc.nasa.gov. |
