720 Bohlinia
Also known as (720) Bohlinia, Bohlinia
main-belt asteroid
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
- Franz Kaiser
- Discovery site
- Heidelberg
- Discovery date
- 18 October 1911
- Alternative designations
- 1911 MW
- Observation arc
- 117.11 yr (42775 d)
- Aphelion
- 2.9376 AU (439.46 Gm )
~2 min read
Article
720 Bohlinia is a minor planet, and binary asteroid, orbiting the Sun that was discovered by Franz Kaiser, a German astronomer in 1911. It is named for Swedish astronomer Karl Petrus Theodor Bohlin, to mark his 65th birthday. He had worked on the orbits of asteroids.
It is one of the Koronis family of asteroids. A group of astronomers, including Lucy d'Escoffier Crespo da Silva and Richard P. Binzel, used observations made between 1998 through 2000 to determine the spin-vector alignment of these asteroids. The collaborative work resulted in the creation of 61 new individual rotation lightcurves to augment previous published observations.