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
- J. Palisa
- Discovery site
- Vienna Obs.
- Discovery date
- 21 October 1911
- Alternative designations
- 1911 NC, 1988 VG 2
- Observation arc
- 104.39 yr (38129 d)
- Aphelion
- 3.0675 AU (458.89 Gm )
~1 min read
Article
724 Hapag is a minor planet orbiting the Sun in the asteroid belt that was found by Austrian astronomer Johann Palisa in 1911 and named after the German shipping company Hamburg America Line. It was assigned a provisional name of 1911 NC, then became a lost asteroid until it was rediscovered in 1988 as 1988 VG2 by Tsutomu Hioki and N. Kawasato at Okutama, Japan.
Photometric observations of this asteroid at the Organ Mesa Observatory in Las Cruces, New Mexico in 2011 gave a light curve with a period of 3.1305 ± 0.0001 hours and a brightness variation of 0.11 ± 0.01 in magnitude.