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October 3 - you can witness the closest pairing of a planet and a first-magnitude star for all of 2012. It's the classic tale of beauty and the beast, as Venus - the goddess of love and beauty - captures the Heart star of Leo the Lion. This star is called Regulus.
• Everywhere around the world, the planet Venus and the star Regulus are close together in the predawn and dawn sky now. Look east. You simply can't miss Venus, which ranks as the third-brightest sky object, after the sun and moon. In fact, Venus outshines Regulus by over 150 times.
• From the U.S. East Coast on Wednesday, October 3, Venus and Regulus will be as little as 1/8 of a degree apart. That's a very small gap of sky - equal to 1/4th of the moon's diameter.
• Venus and Regulus look like they're a hairsbreadth apart on the sky's dome, but that's because these two celestial gems are aligned along the same line of sight. They're actually nowhere close together in space. At present, Venus resides about 100 million miles (161 million kilometers) from Earth, whereby Regulus lies about 77 light-years distant. That places Regulus about 4.5 million times farther away than Venus.
• The first week of October provides a great exhibition of why the Greek word planet means wanderer. By referencing to Regulus and the faint but visible star Rho Leonis, you can envision the ecliptic - the path of the planets in front of the back (Continued on page 21)
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