⚹ What aspects are exact today? The day's tightest pair of planets, and what they are arguing about

Each day the sky brings two planets into an exact angle. Umbriel's free Tightest Pair finds that day's closest one, a conjunction, sextile, square, trine or opposition, and draws the two as characters seated that many degrees apart at a round table, with how close to exact they are and when. You choose one of three captions for what they are arguing about, or write your own. Over a year it becomes a comic.

• What you'll needOne caption; no chart and no account
• What you getToday's tightest aspect between two of the nine planets, its orb in degrees and minutes and the time it is exact, three captions or your own, and a year-long comic of the days you came by, printable as one plate
• CostFree, no account required

"What aspects are happening today?" usually gets a long list. The Tightest Pair gives you one: the aspect that becomes exact today, and of those, the closest.

The cast is nine: the Sun, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune and Pluto, and the angles are the five major aspects: conjunction, sextile, square, trine and opposition. Each day Umbriel finds the pairs whose aspect perfects during that day, and picks the one closest to exact at noon Universal Time. On a day when nothing perfects, it takes the tightest aspect that involves at least one fast planet, because a hairline angle between two slow planets lasts for weeks and is not that day's event. The same pair never holds the stage three days running.

The card seats the two at a round table, as far apart as the aspect puts them: side by side for a conjunction, across the table for an opposition. It gives how far from exact they are, in degrees and minutes, and the time the aspect is exact. The captions know what each planet is after: Mars wants to start it this minute, Saturn wants to do it properly.

Then you pick one of three captions for what they are arguing about, or write your own. The captions are written by hand, warm to every planet: nobody is the villain, nobody is the fool, and no planet is punished for its nature.

Each day you caption becomes a small panel, and the panels make a comic with a recurring cast of nine, printable as an engraved plate. A day with no panel has no panel and no empty outline where one would be. A comic of two panels is as finished as one of 365.

Your comic stays private, on your device, and if you sign in it syncs end to end encrypted, the same way the journal does. Nothing is posted.

The day's pair is chosen by a build tool running the same engine as every chart on Umbriel, and written to a table the card reads. For each Universal Time day it considers every pair of the nine bodies from the Sun to Pluto and the five major aspects at 0°, 60°, 90°, 120° and 180°, and keeps the ones that perfect that day: the signed distance from exact changes sign between midnight and midnight. Of those it takes the one closest to exact at noon. If nothing perfects, it takes the tightest at noon among pairs that include at least one of the Sun, Mercury, Venus or Mars. The same pair and aspect never holds the stage a third day running, and never a second day on closeness alone. The minute of exactness is found by bisection with the engine. The table stores the two longitudes at noon and the card derives the orb from them, so a row cannot disagree with itself. The error shown beside the orb is the one Umbriel already publishes on its error budget page, measured against NASA's JPL Horizons.