Moon and Jupiter together from dusk till dawn
2 comments Print Me Email to FriendTonight is Wednesday, Jul 16 2008
At nightfall tonight, the almost full waxing gibbous moon beams over your southeastern horizon. The blazing light to the left of the moon is Jupiter, the 5th planet outward from the sun.
Because our planet Earth rotates from west to east upon its axis, the moon and Jupiter appear to travel westward across the sky tonight. The moon and Jupiter reach their highest elevation in the southern sky around midnight, and set beneath your southwestern horizon by morning dawn.
Jupiter is by far the most massive (heaviest) world in our solar system. Jupiter has more than twice the mass of all the other solar system planets, moons and asteroids combined. It would take 318 Earths to equal the mass of Jupiter, the king planet.
Jupiter is said to be a failed star. This might be an exaggeration, though, because astronomers believe this planet would have to be 80 times as massive to ignite into a star. Even at that, it’d be a red dwarf star. These red dwarfs are thought to make up 75% of the Milky Way galaxy’s stars, but these stars are so small and faint that not a single one can be seen with the unaided eye!
What Are Four Evenly Spaced Lights Behind Or Beside Jupiter? Viewed 1:30 AM Thursday Morning July 17.
Hi MA.
You didn’t say but I presume you were looking at Jupiter with binoculars or a telescope. That being the case, you were looking at the 4 major moons of Jupiter. Going in order from east-to-west, these moons were Callisto, Europa, Io & Ganymede. Callisto & Europa were to the east of Jupiter, while Io and Ganymede were to the west.
Bruce