Jupiter, the planet named after the king of the gods, is not only visible all night long right now, but is also about as close to Earth as it was in 2011.
This week Jupiter is about 425 million miles away, and is by far the brightest star-like object in the night sky. It was actually a little closer last month, but it’s in a much better place in the sky for great evening telescoping.
No matter how much urban lighting you have to put up with you can easily see 88,000-mile-wide Jupiter in the eastern sky as evening begins and through the rest of the night as it traces an arc westward high across the southern half of the sky. For you early morning pre-twilight risers, Jupiter is still putting on a great show in the western sky as it prepares to set around morning twilight.
Last month Jupiter reached what astronomers call opposition. It’s dubbed that because just like a full moon, Jupiter and the sun are at opposite ends of the sky. This happens because Earth lies between the sun and Jupiter, as you can see in the diagram. Since they’re at opposite ends of our celestial dome, as soon as the sun sets in the west, Jupiter rises in the east, and vice versa. The Jovian giant is prowling across the sky all night long for our perusal.
There are times when Jupiter looks like it has tiny little appendages on either side of it. These are Jupiter’s moons. There’s no way you can visually resolve them with your naked eyes, but even a small pair of binoculars will reveal up to four of Jupiter’s brightest moons that look like tiny little stars on either side of the great planet.
With a small telescope not only can you easily see Jupiter’s moons, but you can also clearly resolve the disk of the planet and maybe some of its cloud bands and zones that stripe the big guy of the solar system. Jupiter is mostly just a big ball of hydrogen and helium gas, but in its outer atmosphere there’s methane, ammonia, sulfur, and other gases that create the multi color cloud bands. There are two darker bands of clouds on either side of Jupiter’s equator that are the easiest to spot.
There are also storms circulating in Jupiter’s upper atmosphere, with the biggest one known as the so-called Great Red Spot that’s three times the diameter of our Earth. This giant hurricane-like storm has been raging on Jupiter for hundreds of years. Unless you have a moderate to large telescope and super clear conditions, it’s hard to spot it in Jupiter’s southern horizon. What also makes it tough to see is that it’s not always facing Earth
In general, viewing Jupiter through a telescope requires patience. First, off, wait until Jupiter is at least 30 degrees above the horizon so you don’t have to look through as much of Earth’s blurring atmosphere to see it. This week it should be high enough for decent viewing after 7 p.m.
Mike Lynch is an amateur astronomer and professional broadcast meteorologist for WCCO Radio in Minneapolis.
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