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Jupiter and Venus close dance in night sky may be visible tonight

Conjunctions between planets happen frequently because the celestial bodies orbit around the sun in approximately the same plane
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These lights were seen over the bridge Wednesday night.

Strange lights appeared over the Sault skies last night.

They puzzled local onlookers, but astronomers have an explanation.

Reports in various news outlets say the celestial vision is in fact the conjunction of Jupiter and Venus.

NASA told CNN that "conjunctions between planets happen frequently because the celestial bodies orbit around the sun in approximately the same plane as one another and trace similar paths across our sky."

The report goes on to say the best time to spot the conjunction of Jupiter and Venus in the US will be early evening on Wednesday, but the two planets will continue to appear close together in the night sky on Thursday.

The conjunction will be visible to the naked eye like they were to local residents Wednesday night.

"I was out with my dog walking around 7 p.m. and a passerby pointed out these lights," wrote a reader to SooToday last night.

The reader said it was "just two bright lights, floating just above the tree line, west of Leslie. The clouds rolled in and they were no longer visible. But didn’t move for the 20 min or so I was out."

The submitted photo was taken by another curious reader named Ian Van Der Swan who saw the planets by the bridge.

It was only a day ago that local sky gazers were treated to an especially interesting Northern Lights display.



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