Tag archives for jupiter
Here’s what’s on tap this week for you skywatchers: Uranus meets the moon, Titan puts in an appearance, and Venus anoints a new moon.
Sky-watchers this week get a chance to go eye to eye with a cosmic scorpion and witness a magnificent meeting of three neighboring worlds in the evening skies.
The lunar wall comes into view, three planets huddle, and the moon joins the Leo constellation in this week’s best sky events.
Skywatchers this weekend will get treated to some beautiful close encounters when the Moon glides past bright clusters of stars and planet Jupiter. Up first on Saturday, April 13, look towards the high western sky after local sunset for a waxing crescent Moon. Look to its far upper left and you will see a super-bright…
Sky Show: Jupiter and Moon in Super Close Pairing
Posted by Andrew Fazekas on January 19, 2013 
Two of the brightest objects in the night sky head towards a close encounter on Monday night. The sky show begins after local nightfall on the 21st when the waxing gibbous moon snuggles up to brilliant white Jupiter in the southeast. This closeness is of course just an illusion – they are in reality separate…
Night Sky News: Venus and Jupiter Main Event
Posted by Andrew Fazekas on March 9, 2012 
If you have been watching the early evening skies at all in the last few weeks you probably noticed the two superbright ‘stars’ in the west are drawing closer together by the day. Two of the most brilliant planets in our solar system, Venus and Jupiter, are about to get a lot more cozy in…
Night Sky News: Planets Dazzle Holiday Skies
Posted by Andrew Fazekas on December 24, 2011 
This holiday season skywatchers get to witness five planets hanging like ornaments in the skies above. All throughout the end of the month you can catch the five classical naked-eye planets – Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn – all of which were first seen by astronomers in ancient Greek and Roman times. First up…
Night Sky News: See Jupiter for Yourself
Posted by Andrew Fazekas on August 5, 2011 
Can’t wait for NASA’s Juno probe to arrive at Jupiter in 2016? Then check out the gas giant shining bright in the overnight sky in August. To find the largest planet in the solar system just look for a super-bright creamy colored star rising above the eastern horizon just after local midnight. As the night…
Night Sky News: Moon Joins Bright Stars and Planets
Posted by Andrew Fazekas on July 22, 2011 
For early bird skywatchers willing to look up before dawn the next few days, the Moon will be putting on a great show. On Saturday, July 23, about an hour before your local dawn face east to find the Quarter Moon. Joining our celestial neighbor will be what looks like a creamy colored, bright star which is…
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National Geographic Emerging Explorer Kevin Hand is looking for alien life on Jupiter’s fourth largest moon. Listen to his interview with Boyd Matson.
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If you’re not an early riser, never fear: It’s possible to see some planets even when the sun is shining. Here’s how.
Night Sky News: Tiny Mercury Easy to See This Week
Posted by Andrew Fazekas on March 14, 2011 Of the eight planets in our solar system, five are visible to the naked eye: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn. Known since ancient times, these naked-eye planets appear similar to stars, but they “wander” across the sky instead of staying in fixed positions relative to each other. Knowing where a planet will pop up…
Posted by Last May amateur astronomers alerted the world to the fact that the gas giant planet Jupiter had lost a belt. Normally the stormy world is encircled by two dark, rusty bands of clouds created by fast-moving jet streams. The features are easy to spot with a backyard telescope (and even easier with pro ‘scopes, such…
If you step outside tonight (and the skies are clear), look to the southwest just after sunset to see the start of a celestial driveby. Just above the horizon you should see a slim sliver of a crescent moon—just 4 percent of the lunar orb’s daylit side will be facing Earth. High above, to the…
This past September the giant planet Jupiter made its closest approach to Earth since 1951, briefly becoming the brightest object in the night sky, aside from the moon. And not too far from that brilliant dot, sky-watchers with even modest binoculars could easily spot one of Jupiter’s distant relatives: the icy gas planet Uranus. Uranus’…
Recently astronomers announced the discovery of the youngest black hole yet found, which we see as an object that’s roughly 30 years old. But the news created a bit of a stir, because the black hole lies in a galaxy that’s about 50 million light-years away. Understanding the controversy means knowing the definition of a…
When you’re talking about a gas giant planet with rings, it’s often Saturn in the limelight. After all, you can see that planet’s bright disk of icy particles from Earth with just a modest telescope. But in 1979 the Voyager 1 spacecraft saw that Jupiter has rings too, albeit a much fainter system primarily made…
By Andrew Fazekas for Breaking Orbit For folks in the Northern Hemisphere, fall is the best time to see the magical displays of the aurora borealis, when nights can be set ablaze with colors as curtains of ghostly glows dance across the sky. (See new aurora pictures from an early September solar storm.) But unless…
Think of it as Moore’s Law for exoplanets. Two astronomers have used the current rate of discovery for planets outside our solar system to calculate when we’re going to find a habitable planet akin to Earth. Their answer: mid-2011. But just like 42, the true meaning of the answer depends a lot on the nature…
It’s been tough times for Jupiter: The gas giant planet lost a belt in May, and, thanks to the diligence of amateur astronomers, we know that it has been struck by space objects at least three times in the course of a year. Australian amateur astronomer Anthony Wesley recorded the first impact in July 2009.…
If Earth’s moon is made of green cheese, Jupiter‘s biggest moon is made of refrozen ice cream. False-color view of Ganymede — mmmmm, planetary Drumstick! —Image courtesy NASA/JPL/DLR According to a new study in Nature Geoscience, the Jovian moon Ganymede used to be similar in structure to its neighbor Callisto. But then, about 3.8 billion…
First, allow me to extend a warm welcome to the 3,500+ astronomers, astronomy buffs, writers, friends, and family now in Washington, D.C., for the 215th meeting of the American Astronomical Society. Welcome to my home town, and thanks for bringing the meeting to me for a change! —Image courtesy NASA Day One of the conference…
Wow. Just… wow. It looks like a computer animation, I know. But that, my friends, is an actual movie of Saturn’s northern auroras taken by the Cassini spacecraft. Witness the tallest northern lights in the solar system, stretching more than 746 miles (1,200 kilometers) above the planet’s polar limb (marked by the white hazy bit…
Aristotle was wrong—just ask Galileo’s ghost. The 17th-century Italian was on hand today to witness the official opening of the National Air and Space Museum’s Public Observatory, a new 22-foot (6.7-meter) dome housing a more than 40-year-old telescope. “Galileo” and David DeVorkin stargaze in front of the observatory’s dome. —Photograph by Eric Long/NASM, National Air…
Ever since Pluto got voted off the island, most astronomers have defined a planet as a body orbiting a star—dead or alive—that is a) massive enough to be rounded by its own gravity, b) not massive enough to ignite itself into starhood, and c) domineering enough to have swept its neighborhood clean of smaller planetary…
