The two brightest planets, Jupiter and Venus, appear close together on the evening of Wednesday, March 1. You'll see the two low in the southwestern sky right after sunset. In this conjunction the two are only a half a degree apart. To most observers the two will look as one bright object, as bright as an airplane approaching the runway with its landing lights on.

Moon and Mars

The first quarter moon appears right next to the bright red planet Mars on Monday night. The two are in the zodiacal constellation Taurus, almost overhead if you look around 8 p.m. Once really bright, the red planet has dimmed considerably in the last month. Mars is now almost 93 million miles away, considerably farther away than at the end of last year when it was less than half of that distance. Mars is now as far away from us as our Sun.

Mars will continue to lose its brilliance in the months ahead. Use Monday night's Moon as an easy guide to find this planetary neighbor. The moon is about a quarter million miles away, a significant difference in distance than Mars. In places like Iceland, the Moon will appear to actually cover Mars. The two will appear closest together at about 1 a.m. on Tuesday morning.

If this seems familiar, know that the moon occulted Mars a month ago in some parts of the Earth. We only get to see the two get close.