المملكة: "Jeddah Astronomy"The conjunction of Venus and Mercury is a distinctive geometric event that is difficult to observe from Earth
Head The Astronomical Society in Jeddah Engineer Majid Abu Zahra said that the sky today, Thursday, January 29, 2026, is witnessing a rare planetary conjunction between the planets Venus and Mercury, as the two planets appear with a very small angular separation that does not exceed about 0.5 degrees, a distance roughly equivalent to the apparent diameter of the full moon, which makes the phenomenon from a celestial engineering perspective a remarkable conjunction, but at the same time it is not observable with the naked eye or traditional ground telescopes because it falls in the direction of the sun. Directly.
Abu Zahra pointed out that planetary conjunction occurs when The fading of the two planets, as Venus is considered the brightest planet in the sky, due to their extreme proximity to the disk of the sun, as any attempt at visual observation poses a serious danger to the eyes and optical devices due to direct solar radiation, which makes this event a clear example of astronomical conjunctions that are important in terms of scientific calculations, but impossible to observe from the surface of the Earth.
He explained that following the event becomes possible through space through images from the SOHO Observatory, which is an observatory. A joint space between NASA and the European Space Agency, which includes a device known as a “coronagraph” that works to artificially obscure the sun’s disk as if it were a permanent solar eclipse, allowing the area surrounding the sun to be seen, where nearby planets and materials ejected from the solar corona appear.
He added that the coronagraph images will show Venus and Mercury as two bright points close together to the left of the sun, with Venus appearing at the top and Mercury at the bottom, while Mars appears at the far right, in A spectacle that can only be achieved using this advanced space technology.
Study of the orbital motion of the planets
Abu Zahra stressed that planetary conjunctions, although they do not reflect a real physical proximity between the planets, are of great scientific importance in studying the precise orbital motion of the inner planets, and calibrating astronomical calculations related to elongation and orbital angles, as well as providing rare opportunities to observe planets in an environment close to the sun, which is difficult to achieve from
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