--- title: See Venus and Saturn Come Together in Friday Night’s Sky description: Earthly observers will be able to see the two planets in one telescope view Friday night and early Saturday morning canonical: https://time.com/4172745/venus-saturn-conjunction/ author: Lauren French article:opinion: false article:content_tier: free article:published_time: 2016-01-08T16:48:26.000Z article:modified_time: 2026-02-22T13:54:16.510Z article:section: Science og:title: See Venus and Saturn Come Together in Friday Night’s Sky og:description: It's an optical illusion og:url: https://time.com/4172745/venus-saturn-conjunction/ og:site_name: TIME og:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltafa868d5391d2c5f/69887831ab6d77286a6a7e1a/saturn.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 og:image:width: 1200 og:image:height: 675 og:image:alt: The huge storm churning through the atmosphere in Saturn's northern hemisphere overtakes itself as it encircles the planet in this true-color view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. og:type: article twitter:card: summary_large_image twitter:title: See Venus and Saturn Come Together in Friday Night’s Sky twitter:description: It's an optical illusion twitter:image: https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltafa868d5391d2c5f/69887831ab6d77286a6a7e1a/saturn.jpg?branch=production&width=3840&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=16:9 ---  # See Venus and Saturn Come Together in Friday Night’s Sky by [Lauren French](https://time.com/author/lauren-french/) ## Lauren French Jan 8, 2016 4:48 PM UTC  Saturn in a true-color view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft. Saturn in a true-color view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.Universal History Archive/Getty Images by [Lauren French](https://time.com/author/lauren-french/) ## Lauren French Jan 8, 2016 4:48 PM UTC While Venus and Saturn are millions of miles apart, earthly observers will be able to[ see the two planets in one telescope view](http://www.space.com/31537-venus-near-saturn-this-weekend.html?cmpid=514648) from Friday night to early Saturday morning. This rare planetary encounter is somewhat of an optical illusion, Space.com reports, because the planets’ movements will make them appear close together and relatively the same size. In reality, Saturn is almost 10 times larger than Venus, but Saturn’s greater distance from Earth makes the two seem similar. However, Venus will shine so brightly, the naked eye might have a hard time separating the two planets. For the best view, [Earthsky.org recommends](http://earthsky.org/tonight/venus-and-saturn-conjunction-january-9) binoculars or a low-powered telescope. ```json [{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"NewsArticle","@id":"https://time.com/4172745/venus-saturn-conjunction/","mainEntityOfPage":{"@type":"WebPage","@id":"https://time.com/4172745/venus-saturn-conjunction/"},"headline":"See Venus and Saturn Come Together in Friday Night’s Sky","datePublished":"2016-01-08T16:48:26.000Z","dateModified":"2026-02-22T13:54:16.510Z","description":"It's an optical illusion","url":"https://time.com/4172745/venus-saturn-conjunction/","keywords":["Space"],"thumbnailUrl":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltafa868d5391d2c5f/69887831ab6d77286a6a7e1a/saturn.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","author":[{"@type":"Person","name":"Lauren French","jobTitle":null,"url":"https://time.com/author/lauren-french/"}],"articleSection":"Science","image":[{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://static.time.com/v3/assets/bltea6093859af6183b/bltafa868d5391d2c5f/69887831ab6d77286a6a7e1a/saturn.jpg?branch=production&width=1200&quality=75&auto=webp&crop=1200:675&height=675","width":1200,"height":675,"headline":"The huge storm churning through the atmosphere in Saturn's northern hemisphere overtakes itself as it encircles the planet in this true-color view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.","caption":"The huge storm churning through the atmosphere in Saturn's northern hemisphere overtakes itself as it encircles the planet in this true-color view from NASA's Cassini spacecraft.","creditText":"Universal History Archive/Getty Images","representativeOfPage":true}],"publisher":{"@type":"Organization","name":"Time","url":"https://time.com/","logo":{"@type":"ImageObject","url":"https://time.com/images/logo.png","width":528,"height":156},"foundingDate":"March 3, 1923","sameAs":["https://www.facebook.com/time","https://www.instagram.com/time/?hl=en","https://twitter.com/time","https://www.pinterest.com/timemagazine"]}},{"@context":"https://schema.org","@type":"BreadcrumbList","itemListElement":[{"@type":"ListItem","position":1,"item":{"@id":"/section/science/","name":"Science"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":2,"item":{"@id":"/tag/space/","name":"Space"}},{"@type":"ListItem","position":3,"item":{"@id":"https://time.com/4172745/venus-saturn-conjunction/","name":"See Venus and Saturn Come Together in Friday Night’s Sky"}}]}] ```