• The waxing gibbous moon glides close to the the star Spica and the planet Saturn on the night of May 3, 2012. The moon will be passing relatively close to Spica and Saturn for the next several days, as the moon moves in its endless orbit around Earth.
• Of course, in reality, the moon's nearness to Spica and Saturn tonight is just a line-of-sight illusion. The moon never gets close to Spica in a true sense because the moon orbits Earth at only about one light-second away - while Spica is 260 light-years away. Saturn, though much closer than Spica,

is still a very distant 73 light-minutes away tonight.
• Saturn has been close to Spica throughout 2012 so far, and it will stay close to Spica for the most of 2012. While the moon stays in any one constellation of the Zodiac for two or three days, Saturn stays in the same zodiacal constellation for up to two or three years. You can distinguish the star Spica from the planet Saturn by color. Spica radiates blue-white while Saturn appears golden. You need binoculars to see their colors in the moonlit glare tonight or for the next several nights, but you'll clearly see the contrast after the moon moves on.
• Spica is the 15th or 16th brightest star in the sky (it's neck-and-neck with the star Antares, in terms of brightness). Spica is a close double star, and both stars in the Spica system are much hotter and brighter than our sun. In fact, there is some evidence that there are as many as three more smaller, fainter stars in the Spica system.
• A tip for finding planets in our night sky. Each month, the moon pairs up for a day or two with other bright stars such as Regulus in the constellation Leo, Antares in the constellation Scorpius and Aldebaran in the constellation Taurus. These stars

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