Through A Hole In The Clouds.

Only a few degrees apart in the evening sky, Jupiter and Venus hang over Edinburgh Castle and the great new glass roof of Waverley Station.

The planets were briefly visible through a fleeting gap in the low cloud layer reflecting the sodium and mercury streetlights of the city centre; a reminder that light pollution in our cities is a problem, robbing generations of the beauty of the night sky.

Close planetary conjuctions such as this emphasise that we live on a world that is part of a dynamic solar system - itself a minute constituent of an immense and evolving universe.