Dr. Becky | Mars + Jupiter Conjunction 15th August 2024 #shorts @DrBecky | Uploaded 2 months ago | Updated 2 days ago
Mars and Jupiter will be around in the morning sky all month rising ever earlier as time marches on and also appearing to getting closer together from our perspective as each planet moves along its orbit. So that by early morning on Thursday 15th of August they’ve reached what’s known as conjunction, they’re closest approach on the sky - where they’ll be less than the width of the full moon away from each other - at their closest they’ll be about 0.3 degrees apart. about the width of your little finger at arms length, meaning they can both fit in the field of view of a typical amateur telescope. Now wherever you are in the world you should be able to see them getting closer together all throughout the month, but the closest approach happens on Wednesday 14th august at 16:52 GMT, so if in your time zone that’s early morning, so New Zealand and Polynesia you’ll see the exact time of closest approach, but the rest of us will still see them very close indeed - let's hope for clear skies! #astronomy #stargazing