Venus and Jupiter Make Rare Appearance in Night Sky

In case you missed it - Venus and Jupiter were clearly visible in the SE sky this morning. 

If you slept in past 6 a.m. this morning, you probably missed a rare sighting of Venus and Jupiter together in the sky. The two don't typically "hang out" together, as Meteorologist Ron Rhodes would say, but the planets were both clearly visible in the SE sky Friday morning.

If you look in the top middle portion of the photo, you can see two teensy, tiny dots. They could easily be mistaken for stars because they're so small, but those two dots are actually planets in our solar system that are visible from Earth. Crazy, right? While seeing planets in the night sky isn't totally uncommon, it never gets less exciting...at least for me.

Here's a different view of the planets:

Venus is the brighter spot on the left, and Jupiter is the smaller dot on the right. The planets are a little hard to see in a photo, especially if you're anything less than 20/20, but they were clearly visible to the naked eye.

And while these planets look teeny tiny, they're actually HUGE. Like incomprehensibly huge, but I'll try to put it into perspective for you.

About 1,300 Earths could fit inside Jupiter (the right dot). That's a lot of Earths. It would take 3 Earths just to cover Jupiter's red spot. While we could see Jupiter, we couldn't spot any of its 67 moons.

Venus is often referred to as Earth's "sister planet" due to their similar size and mass. Venus is the second planet from the sun, but is the second-largest object in the night sky next to the moon.

So, with that taken into consideration, it's safe to say that while we could see the two planets in the sky this morning, they're still really, really, really far away.