Q154719

Also known as (482) Petrina, Petrina

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.

Key facts

Discovered by: Max Wolf
Discovery site: Heidelberg
Discovery date: 3 March 1902
Pronunciation: / p ɛ ˈ t r aɪ n ə /
Alternative designations: 1902 HT
Observation arc: 111.53 yr (40737 d)

~1 min read

Article

482 Petrina is a minor planet orbiting the Sun.

Attempts to produce a light curve for this object have yielded differing synodic rotation periods, perhaps in part because the period is close to half an Earth day. Observations suggest that the pole of rotation is near the orbital plane, yielding only small light variations during certain parts of each orbit. Attempts to observe the asteroid photometrically during an optimal viewing period of the object's orbit gave a rotation period of 11.7922 ± 0.0001 h with an amplitude variation of 0.53 ± 0.05 in magnitude.