Passing Close
More generally, in the particular case of two planets, it means that they merely have the same right ascension (and hence the same hour angle). This is called conjunction in right ascension. However, there is also the term conjunction in ecliptical longitude. At such conjunction both objects have the same ecliptical longitude. Conjunction in right ascension and conjunction in ecliptical longitude do not normally take place at the same time, but in most cases nearly at the same time. However, at triple conjunctions, it is possible that a conjunction only in right ascension (or ecliptical length) occur. At the time of conjunction – it does not matter if in right ascension or in ecliptical longitude – the involved planets are close together upon the celestial sphere. In the vast majority of such cases, one of the planets will appear to pass north or south of the other.
Read more about this topic: Conjunction (astronomy)
Famous quotes containing the words passing and/or close:
“Toll on, thou passing bell;
Ring out my doleful knell;”
—George Boleyn (d. 1536)
“It was the most ungrateful and unjust act ever perpetrated by a republic upon a class of citizens who had worked and sacrificed and suffered as did the women of this nation in the struggle of the Civil War only to be rewarded at its close by such unspeakable degradation as to be reduced to the plane of subjects to enfranchised slaves.”
—Anna Howard Shaw (1847–1919)