Tuesday, September 21, 2010

Jupiter's in the Full Moon of Uranus?

I was supposed to write an entry tonight, to be posted tomorrow morning, for the next question in the Great Book Challenge. Instead, I decided to go outside and check out Jupiter in the night sky. On September 20th, Jupiter was the closest it has been to earth since 1963. Today, the 22nd, is the opposition of Jupiter which means we are directly between Jupiter and the sun. In essence, the light reflected back to us is a full Jupiter (next to a full moon, that's pretty awesome).

Dudes. I'm using NASA photos... again.

I, sadly, only had my slightly-wonky-but-correct-with-glasses eyes with which to see this. If you happen to have binoculars (or better yet, a telescope, but if you have that, you probably don't need me to tell you this), you will also be able to see Uranus and a few of Jupiter's moons.

You will still be able to see this for the next few weeks although the brightness will diminish with time so I'd encourage you to get out sooner rather than later.

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