How to observe planet Jupiter Monday night? - Deseret News

Planet Jupiter is passing by Earth and coming the closest it’s been in 59 years on Monday. This will happen as the sun, Earth and Jupiter align in a straight line, reaching opposition.

This alignment occurs every 13 months and makes planets appear big and bright, according to NPR. But this time around, Jupiter will be nearer to Earth than it’s been since 1963.

At their furthest, the two planets are 600 million miles away, but during this opposition they will be 367 million miles apart, according to NASA.

How to watch Jupiter on Monday night?

The NASA announcement recommends a pair of good binoculars to get a detailed view of the planet in the spotlight.

“Jupiter is so bright and brilliant that a really nice thing about it is even in a city, in the middle of a bright city, you can see it,” Alphonse Sterling, a NASA astrophysicist at the Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama, told NPR. “So I would say that it’s a good thing to take advantage of and to look at no matter where you’re at.”

It will be visible for most of the night, rising when the sun dips and appearing when it’s dark again.

Can you observe Jupiter’s moons Monday night?

Jupiter, fifth from the sun, has 53 named moons, but the actual number may be well over that, the space agency said.

“With good binoculars, the banding (at least the central band) and three or four of the Galilean satellites (moons) should be visible,” said Adam Kobelski, a research astrophysicist at NASA’s Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama.

Jupiter’s four largest moons are Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, and are known as the Galileans satellite, after Galileo Galilei who first observed them in the 17th century.

“It’s important to remember that Galileo observed these moons with 17th-century optics. One of the key needs will be a stable mount for whatever system you use,” he added.

The next time Jupiter will come this close to Earth will be over one hundred years from now.

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