Will Venus visit the Pleiades on 2-3 April 2012?

Question

It's going to be close. Venus will be riding "high," a few degrees above the ecliptic, and it will be an evening star, near greatest eastern elongation, which occurs on 27 March 2012.

Man, what a show. You can probably see Venus cruising through that star field with binoculars, nice and bright and in good company, waving at the Seven Sisters.

But exactly how close will the pass be? Will Venus actually go through the Pleiades? Or will it pass just slightly to the south of them? And am I right about the date?

Answer 1

Wow!  But not on March 27.  It will just graze the southern end of the seven sisters on April 2 and 3.

Before I saw your additional comments, I was going to look up its elongation.  So, being that far out, we should be able to get a pretty good look at it.  You KNOW the Astronomy Picture of the Day is going to have a telescopic photo showing the "half"-Venus sitting at the bottom of the cluster.

Answer 2

Your question got me playing about with Starry Night Enthusiast. It turns out that the transits of Venus through the Pleiades are similar in their periodicity to transits of Venus across the Sun in that they repeat a few times with 8 year intervals, then cease for an extended period of time. I make it that 2020 is a near miss, but Venus passes through the Pleiades on or about 2028 April 3rd, 2036 April 4th, 2044 April 4th and 2052 April 5th, with a near miss on 2060 April 6th. As with transits across the Sun, there is also a 243 year cycle, with previous transits through the Pleiades on 1793 April 1st, 1801 April 2nd and 1809 April 2nd. No such events occurred during the remainder of the 19th or the whole of the 20th century.

Venus can also pass through the Pleiades on or about May 10th, but the Sun is only about 10 degrees away on this date, so an observation of the event would be impossible.

Venus is the only planet whose orbit crosses the Pleiades as seen from Earth. Mercury comes close and can be seen just over 1 degree away on 2009 April 30th and again on this date in 2015 and 2022 and continuing at 6 or 7 year intervals. The nearest that Mars can come to the Pleiades is about 1.5 degrees during early January. The last time this happened was in 1991. The other major planets never come within 4 degrees of the Pleiades.

Answer 3

you are right about the date. venus will pass just south of the pleiades, by only by a few minutes. it looks like it will be slightly closer for southern hemisphere observers.

Answer 4

That sounds pretty spectacular - I hope I remember to look for this, as it might finally be the thing that makes me look forward to 2012.....

Heh - when I read the question headline, I was thinking it might be another silly question, to which my response was going to be - yes, and then they'll have a pillow fight, when there's a knock at the door, and it's Hercules there to fix their cable - cue the 70's funk track.....

:)