"Ceres Photobombs Spiral Galaxy in Weekend Sky Show"

The Virtual Telescope Project will host a livestream on Sunday, March 26, showing the dwarf planet Ceres passing in front of the spiral galaxy Messier 100. Ceres is the largest object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter and is about 14 times smaller than Pluto. The two objects will actually be trillions of miles apart, with Ceres about 150 million miles from Earth and M100 at about 55 million light-years away. The meeting will take place in the constellation Coma Berenices just a few days after Ceres' opposition, making it visible with stargazing binoculars or a small telescope.