Five years after a balky valve kept it from entering orbit around Venus, Japan’s Akatsuki space probe is again approaching the sweltering planet for another shot at completing its science mission in December.
What’s the youngest Moon you’ve ever seen? While the best opportunities generally occur in Northern Hemisphere spring when the ecliptic’s high, 21st January offers UK observers a 28-hour-old lunar crescent.
Inner planets Mercury and Venus are currently approaching conjunction, low to the southwest horizon shortly after sunset. If you have an extra clear sky, then Mars completes the scene.
The European Space Agency’s Venus Express spacecraft has run out of fuel and will burn up in the atmosphere of Venus in January after a successful eight-year mission.
If there is one thing you learn from the outset about Venus, it is that it is permanently shrouded in a blanket of cloud, but this filter will bring out some detail.
Venus has a close encounter with first magnitude star Regulus, constellation Leo’s luminary, in the dawn twilight on the mornings of 5 and 6 September.