Lunar occultation of Venus

The current monthly cycle featuring occultations of naked-eye star Lambda Geminorum continues with an early evening event for the British Isles on Sunday, 1st February.

Latest predictions indicate that second-largest asteroid (4) Vesta will pass in front of magnitude +5.3 star HIP 14439 in the constellation of Aries close to 10:02pm GMT (22:02 UT) on Tuesday, 11 February 2020, a binocular event visible from the north of England, Northern Ireland and Scotland.

Five years after missing a shot to enter orbit at Venus, Japan’s Akatsuki spacecraft completed a critical rocket burn early Monday in a bid to salvage the research mission and become the only space probe operating around Earth’s nearest planetary neighbor.