The Traffic in Taurus
Explanation:
There's a traffic jam in Taurus lately.
On April 1, this
celestial frame
from slightly hazy skies over Tapiobicske, Hungary recorded
an impressive pile up toward the zodiacal constellation of the Bull
and the Solar System's ecliptic plane.
Streaking right to left the
International Space Station
speeds across the bottom of the telescopic field of view.
Wandering about
as far from the Sun in planet Earth's skies as it can
get, inner planet Venus is bright and approaching much slower,
overexposed at the right.
Bystanding at the upper left are the sister stars of the Pleiades.
No one has been injured in the close encounter though, because it really
isn't very close.
Continuously occupied since November 2000,
the space station orbits some 400 kilometers
above the planet's surface.
Venus, currently the brilliant evening star,
is almost 2/3 of an
astronomical unit away.
A more permanent resident of Taurus, the Pleiades star cluster is
400 light-years distant.
