The Moon’s two-night encounter with Jupiter

The waxing gibbous Moon is close to planet Jupiter on the evenings of 29th and 30th March. For scale, this animated view of the changing configuration of the Moon and Jupiter is about 40° wide, or twice the span of an outstretched hand at arm's length. AN graphic by Ade Ashford
The waxing gibbous Moon is close to planet Jupiter on the evenings of 29th and 30th March. For scale, this animated view of the changing configuration of the Moon and Jupiter is about 40° wide, or twice the span of an outstretched hand at arm’s length. AN graphic by Ade Ashford
Despite being closest to Earth last month, the Solar System’s largest planet is still prominent at the close of March: Jupiter is big and bright in the constellation Cancer and currently highest in the sky to the south around 9:45 pm BST for the centre of the British Isles.

Jupiter is presently the third brightest object in the night sky after the Moon and Venus (the latter dazzling low to the west), but if any help is required to identify the King of the Planets then the Moon is 8° away to its lower right on Sunday night, and a shade under 9° to the lower left of Jupiter on Monday evening (for scale, the span of your fist at arm’s length is about 10°).

For telescope users on Sunday night, Jupiter’s moon Io emerges from eclipse by its parent planet at 10:24 pm. The Great Red Spot will be on the centre of Jupiter’s disc at 11:53 pm on the 29th, but visible for an hour either side of that time. On Monday, moon Europa is occulted by Jupiter at 11:02 pm (all times BST).

While gazing at this conjunction of the Moon and Jupiter, try and comprehend the differing distance of these two worlds from us. On the night of March 30th, the Moon will be 248,600 miles (400,100 kilometres) distant, while Jupiter will be 440.5 million miles (709 million kilometres) from Earth — a staggering 1770 times further away! Clear skies!


Inside the magazine

You can find out more about Jupiter in the March edition of Astronomy Now in addition to a full observing guide to the night sky.

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