Triple Planet Huddle

As seen on the National Geographic News like the tip of a cosmic arrow pointing toward the heavens, three bright, star-like planets form a distinct triangular pattern in the darkening skies above the Himalayas in the late May 2013. Mercury, Venus, and Jupiter slowly converged just above the northwestern horizon over the course of a few weeks. But their proximity as seen from Earth was just an optical illusion, since the three planets are actually separated by hundreds of millions of kilometers. Click on the second photo to see this scene one day later on the evening of May 26, 2013, when the planets appeared closest together.