Did You See Venus and Jupiter?

This article was extracted from my early NetEase blog. NetEase Blog is no longer operating, but looking back, these words are still quite interesting, so I decided to move them over as intact as possible. This is mainly kept as a record; after all these years, the quality of the text, images, and links may all have been affected.

This article was originally published on December 1, 2008. I was about 19 years old at the time and was in college.

Recently, in the southwest part of the sky, you can see two very bright stars, even when there are no other stars in the sky. What are they? Many people have given different answers. The most authoritative one is that they are Venus and Jupiter. The darker one above is Jupiter, and the darker one below is Venus. Based on the current situation, they will get closer and closer. Some people jokingly call it Venus transiting Jupiter, and some say it is an ill omen. The last time this appeared was in 1976. Is it really an ill omen? What story is behind it? I have no idea. Also: if you see it, you must reply, so I can know how many people saw it!