Skywatchers in the 2Samoas can view planetary conjunction

Pago Pago, AMERICAN SAMOA — Skywatchers in the 2Samoas have the opportunity to see not one but two planetary conjunctions during the month of April in a bonus for budding astronomers. 

Members of the public were able to see the visible conjunction of the quartet over the eastern horizon at predawn on Wednesday. 

A conjunction is a celestial event in which two planets, a planet and the moon or a planet and a star appear close together in the earth’s night sky. Conjunctions have no profound astronomical significance but are pleasant to view. 

According to the Samoa Government's Meteorology Office (MET), planet Venus (Tapuitea) was the brightest out of the four planets, with Mars and its faint reddish glow on Wednesday’s celestial parade. 

“These events are rare and more are still to come,” the MET posted on their Facebook page. “In the last week of April, the moon will also join the celestial planetary dance.”

The MET said that although these events are forecast to occur throughout the whole of April, “we may yet see a more clear perspective of the celestial conjunction in the last week of April in regards to our location in the hemisphere.” 

In the solar system, conjunctions occur frequently between planets because the planets orbit around the sun in approximately the same plane — the ecliptic plane — and trace similar paths across our sky.

According to NASA the public will also see a bright Jupiter ascend quickly in the morning twilight, heading towards Venus in the final week of April.