Picture of the Day · NASA
Jupiter and Venus from Earth
2026-06-07
It was visible around the world. The sunset conjunction of Jupiter (left) and Venus (right) in 2012 was visible almost no matter where you lived on Earth. Anyone on our planet with a clear western horizon at sunset could see them. That year, a creative photographer traveled away from the town lights of Szubin, Poland to photograph a near closest approach of the two planets. The bright planets were then separated by only three degrees and his daughter struck a humorous pose. A faint red sunset still glowed in the background. Jupiter and Venus are together again this week after sunset, passing within a degree of each other about two days from today.
© Marek Nikodem (PPSAE) · via NASA APOD
Key facts
- Discovered by
- Christian Heinrich Friedrich Peters
- Discovery date
- 14 August 1870
- Pronunciation
- / ˈ eɪ t iː /
- Named after
- Ate
- Alternative designations
- A870 PA; 1911 KE;, 1935 AA
- Minor planet category
- Main belt
~1 min read
Article
111 Ate is a main-belt asteroid discovered by the German-American astronomer C. H. F. Peters on August 14, 1870, and named after Ate, the goddess of mischief and destruction in Greek mythology. In the Tholen classification system, it is categorized as a carbonaceous C-type asteroid, while the Bus asteroid taxonomy system lists it as an Ch asteroid.
Two stellar occultations by Ate were observed in 2000, two months apart. Its occultation of the star HIP 2559 was used to determine a chord length of 125.6 ± 7.2 km through the asteroid, giving a lower bound on the maximum dimension. During 2000, 111 Ate was observed by radar from the Arecibo Observatory. The return signal matched an effective diameter of 135 ± 15 km. The estimated size of this asteroid is 143 km, making it one of the larger asteroids.