Not all those who wander are lost. A night sky example is that
planets wander, and in fact the very word "planet" comes from "wandering star" in Greek. As planets
shift relative to
fixed stars, they may appear from our perspective to
get closer to other astronomical objects. Such
meetings are called
conjunctions. They don't happen by chance, but follow the precise laws of
celestial mechanics. This peaceful
image, captured in
Poland, shows the
crescent Moon above the
Tatra Mountains, and bright
Venus close by, a little lower in the horizon. The bright star to the left of Venus is
Spica in the constellation of
Virgo, the Maiden. Spica is
one of the brightest stars in the sky, only about 250 light-years away. It was found in 1890 that
Spica is a binary star: two massive blue stars orbiting each other every 4 days. But earlier this year it was reported that Spica, the current companion of wandering Venus, is actually a
triple system.