Week of Oct. 4 -- 10, 2009 by Dennis Mammana on Creators.com

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Week of Oct. 4 -- 10, 2009

When the earliest stargazers watched the sky, they carefully mapped the positions of the stars, and they recognized them as fixed and immovable. Some of the lights were not so fixed, however.

Occasionally, a meteor would burst into view, only to be gone moments later. There were the comets — those mysterious and ethereal visitors that seemed to drift among the stars for weeks or months, and then vanish forever.

And then there were the planets: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. All appeared to wander across the sky — from night to night, from month to month. Their classification as "planets" comes from the ancient Greek word meaning "wanderer." The earliest sky watchers believed that these lights were special — that they were messengers of the gods or, perhaps, even the gods themselves.

The movement of the planets is quite easy to watch, but many casual stargazers have never really seen it. This week, however, will be a good time for just that purpose — if you're willing to get up before sunrise.

At that time, you'll see three planets low in the eastern sky: Venus, Mercury and Saturn. If you keep watch over the next few mornings, you'll see their remarkable motions.

At dawn on Thursday, Oct.

8, brilliant Venus will appear above the two fainter planets, Mercury and Saturn. These latter two will lie within half a degree of each other, and stargazers with a low-powered telescope will be able to see both in the same field of view.

Within only days, the configuration will change dramatically. Sky watchers will notice that Mercury and Venus — the most rapidly moving of all planets — will descend from day to day and, by the morning of Tuesday, Oct. 13, Venus will appear next to Saturn. Now these two will be separated by only half a degree and will be visible together in a small telescope.

By the morning of Friday, Oct. 16, the thin crescent moon will join the party and contribute to an even more beautiful sight.

The apparent closeness of these worlds is, of course, an illusion. They are really many millions of miles apart but just appear close because they lie along nearly the same line of sight. For example, on the morning of Oct. 8, Mercury and Saturn will lie 874 million miles apart, and on the morning of Oct. 13, Venus and Saturn will lie 828 million miles apart.

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