The Moon will meet Jupiter, the largest planet of the solar system, for the last time in 2023, when the two celestial bodies come close in the sky on Friday, December 22. At approximately the same time, the two celestial bodies will share the same direct ascension; This is an arrangement that astronomers call a conjunction.
As the moon moves towards December’s Cold Moon, the last full moon of 2023 on Tuesday, December 26, the 10-day moon will be 86% illuminated during this zoom, and its moonlit side is currently growing.
From New York City, the pre-Christmas meeting between the moon and Jupiter will be visible shortly after the two celestial bodies rise above the horizon around 1:18 p.m. EST (1818 GMT). In the sky. During the meeting, the 10-day moon will pass just 2 degrees north of Jupiter, and both celestial bodies will be located in the constellation Aries.
The close approach and conjunction of the Moon and the solar system’s largest planet will be visible until it begins to set around 2:50 a.m. EST (0750 GMT). This means skywatchers will have a few hours to spot this conjunction after the sun sets and the sky darkens at 4:31 PM EST (2131 GMT). Although this is a close approach, the Moon and Jupiter will still be too wide to be seen together in the narrow field of view of a telescope, but they will be visible together in the wide field of view of binoculars.
Relating to: Night sky, December 2023: What you can see tonight
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During the conjunction, the Moon will be at magnitude -12.5, while Jupiter will be fainter at magnitude -2.7, with the minus prefix indicating a particularly bright object in the sky on Earth.
During close approach, the Moon will dominate Jupiter in size in the sky, but this is of course just an effect of our perspective from Earth. The Moon is much closer to our planet, the third planet from the sun, than Jupiter, the fifth planet in the solar system, but Jupiter is much superior to the other in terms of size.
Jupiter is about 89,000 miles (143,000 km) across, making it 11 times the size of Earth, and our planet is about four times larger than the moon, which has a diameter of about 2,200 miles (3,500 kilometers). This means that at least 44 moons are required to extend the diameter of Jupiter.
In fact, the gas giant is so large that it has moons larger than Earth’s moon and even some planets in the solar system. The largest Jovian moon is Ganymede, which is also the largest moon in the solar system.
At 3,270 miles (5,268 km) in diameter, Ganymede is larger than the dwarf planet Pluto and even wider than the planet Mercury, which has a diameter of 3,032 miles (4,879 km). Jupiter’s moon Titan is also larger than Mercury, but this is due to the inflation of its atmosphere.
Jupiter is currently about 403 million miles (650 million kilometers) from Earth; This is approximately 4.32 times the distance between Earth and the sun, which means it would take light about 35 minutes to travel from our planet to past Mars and to Jupiter.
While the Moon is 238,855 miles (384,400 kilometers) away from Earth, the gas giant is an average of 444 million miles (715 million km) away from our planet. This means that the Earth-moon system would fit about 1687 times further into the current distance from Jupiter.
At its closest point to Earth, the gas giant is still 365 million miles (588 million km) away, while at its farthest Jupiter is 601 million miles (967 million km) away. This means that the distance to Jupiter varies by 236 million miles; This means that the change in distance alone is large enough to fit the Earth-moon system inside it approximately 988 times!
Although this will be the last meeting of the moon and Jupiter this year, it will not be long before the two celestial bodies meet again. The Moon will approach Jupiter on Thursday, January 18, just a week after the first new moon of 2024 and the start of next year’s first full lunar cycle.
If you’re hoping to catch a glimpse of the next conjunction between the Moon and Jupiter, our guides best telescopes And best binoculars is a great place to start.
If you want to take photos of these celestial objects or night sky Check out our overall guide how to take a photo of the moon, How to take photos of planetsalso our The best cameras for astrophotography And The best lenses for astrophotography.
Editor’s Note: If you take a photo of the Moon with Jupiter and would like to share it with Space.com readers, send your photos, comments, name and location to spacephotos@space.com.