Wednesday, December 3, 2008

The Sky Is Happy

...It's Smiling

Jeffrey took this picture a couple of nights ago and I found out afterwards that the phenomenon of three celestial bodies so close together only occurs once a year. A smiley face with the eyes of Venus and Jupiter and a friendly little smile from the crescent moon graced the sky of Beijing. Good thing that Beijing reached its target of blue sky of the year (already 256 by the end of November compare to 100 in 1998!) or we wouldn’t have been able to see it!!

The moon is meeting Venus and Jupiter

However, despite the introduction of traffic restrictions, December is probably not going to be a great month for blue skies. December is normally the worst time for Beijing's air quality. The index hit 500 back in 2006 and in 2007 the index hit 421 in late December and then peaked at 500 a few days after Christmas.