Mars, Venus and the moon are having a cosmic meet-up this week
The moon, Venus and Mars are getting close in the night sky this week.
Mars and Venus will appear just next to the crescent moon in a coincidental planetary meet-up Tuesday.
You should be able to see the trio (assuming you have good weather) by looking west Tuesday evening, according to a NASA skywatching video.
Mars, which looks much like a red-tinged star, should appear just below the moon, with brightly-shining Venus just below that. Both will be near the constellation Aquarius.
Unfortunately for millions of people in the U.S. Northeast, clouds will likely obscure views of the three cosmic objects.
But even if you can't see Mars, Venus and the moon together this week, you'll still have some good opportunities to check out Venus throughout the first part of 2017.
If you have access to a telescope, it'll be worthwhile to train it on the planet at different times during January to see it move through its phases, according to NASA.
"Venus shines at its brightest in many years," NASA spokeswoman Jane Houston Jones, said in the video.
Venus' face should be 50 percent lit on January 14 and about 40 percent lit by the end of the month, Jones added.
The end of January is also a good time to spot Comet 45P through telescopes or binoculars. The comet will be low in the sky on Jan. 31 just before sunrise.
Miriam Kramer worked as a staff writer for Space.com for about 2.5 years before joining Mashable to cover all things outer space. She took a ride in weightlessness on a zero-gravity flight and watched rockets launch to space from places around the United States. Miriam received her Master's degree in science, health and environmental reporting from New York University in 2012, and she originally hails from Knoxville, Tennessee. Follow Miriam on Twitter at @mirikramer.
