2024, June 23: Jupiter Returns!

June 23, 2024: Jupiter returns to the morning sky.  Look for it in the east-northeast during morning twilight.  Mars and Saturn are in the same region.

Jupiter' Great Red Spot
Photo Caption – Jupiter (NASA Photo)

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by Jeffrey L. Hunt

Chicago, Illinois: Sunrise, 5:16 a.m. CDT; Sunset, 8:30 p.m. CDT.  Check local sources for sunrise and sunset times. Times are calculated by the US Naval Observatory’s MICA computer program.

Here is today’s planet forecast:

Morning Sky

Morning Moon

Full Moon
Full Moon

An hour before sunrise, the bright moon, 98% illuminated, is about 15° up in the south-southwest.  It sets over an hour after sunup.

Jupiter in Eastern Sky

Jupiter before sunrise
Chart Caption – 2024, June 23: Jupiter and Mars are in the eastern sky before sunrise.

While recent articles have included Jupiter in the morning forecast, the planet becomes easier to see each morning during twilight.  At mid-twilight, an hour before sunrise at this season, the Jovian Giant is over 5° above the east-northeast horizon.  Many celestial bodies are not visible at this altitude, but the third brightest regular nighttime visitor is easy to see from a location with a clear horizon.

Each morning, Jupiter is higher in the sky at this hour.  It is in front of Taurus, and when the pattern appears higher in the sky during the next few weeks, the star Aldebaran is nearby.

Jupiter Close up from Hubble Space Telescope
Photo Caption – This Hubble Space Telescope view of Jupiter, taken on June 27, 2019, reveals the giant planet’s trademark Great Red Spot, and a more intense color palette in the clouds swirling in Jupiter’s turbulent atmosphere than seen in previous years. The colors, and their changes, provide important clues to ongoing processes in Jupiter’s atmosphere.

When the telescopic view improves as the planet is higher, the four largest moons are easier to see as well as the famous Great Red Spot.

Mars

Mars - This image shows the globe of Mars set against a dark background. The disc of the planet features yellow, orange, blue and green patches, all with an overall muted grey hue, representing the varying composition of the surface.
Photo Caption – To mark 20 years of ESA’s Mars Express, the High Resolution Stereo Camera (HRSC) team has produced a new global color mosaic: Mars as never seen before. The mosaic reveals the planet’s surface color and composition in spectacular detail. (Photo: European Space Agency, ESA)

Mars, marching eastward in front of Aries, is 26.1° to Jupiter’s upper right and 11.3° to the lower right of Hamal, the Ram’s brightest star.  The Red Planet passes Jupiter on August 14th.  Watch the gap close each morning.  The rate is over 0.5° eastward each night, larger than the diameter of the moon in the sky.

2024, June 23: Look for Saturn in the south-southeast during morning twilight.
Cart Caption – 2024, June 23: Look for Saturn in the south-southeast during morning twilight.

Saturn is the third bright planet in this morning’s sky, over 35° above the south-southeast horizon and over 60° to the moon’s upper left.  While not as bright as Jupiter and slightly dimmer than Mars, the Ringed Wonder is brighter than most stars this morning.

This sequence of images from the Hubble Space Telescope documents a rare astronomical alignment -- Saturn's magnificent ring system turned edge-on. This occurs when the Earth passes through Saturn's ring plane, as it does approximately every 15 years.
This sequence of images from the Hubble Space Telescope documents a rare astronomical alignment — Saturn’s magnificent ring system turned edge-on. This occurs when the Earth passes through Saturn’s ring plane, as it does approximately every 15 years. (NASA photos)

Through a telescope, the rings appear thin.  Like Earth, Saturn is tilted compared to its orbital plane.  During its nearly 30-year trek around the sun, sky watchers see rings widely and then they appear to narrow and nearly disappear as we see the rings edge-on about every 15 years.

The next “ring plane crossing” occurs during March 2025. During these occasions, moons can be seen easier without the reflections from the icy bodies that comprise the rings.  Perhaps more will be added to the tally that is now about 150 moons.

Evening Sky

Mercury, Venus

Mercury and Venus are east of the sun, but they set during brighter evening twilight.  Venus only sets 23 minutes after the sun, while Mercury sets nearly 30 minutes later.

Venus appears low in the western sky as the Evening Star in over a month.  Its late entry in to the evening sky is from our poor view of the solar system at the season.

Mercury reaches its greatest separation from the sun in about a month, but suffers from the same poor view as Venus.  Then it zips past earth and to its best morning view of the year during early September.

Summer Triangle

2024, June 23: After sundown, the Summer Triangle – Vega, Altair, and Deneb – is in the east-northeast.
Chart Caption – 2024, June 23: After sundown, the Summer Triangle – Vega, Altair, and Deneb – is in the east-northeast.

With the moon rising around midnight, look for the Summer Triangle – Vega, Altair, and Deneb – in the east-northeast as the sky darkens.  The shape’s nickname describes that it appears in the eastern sky during summer’s evenings.

Vega, part of Lyra and the third brightest star for mid-northern hemisphere sky watchers, is high in the east-northeast.  Altair, part of Aquila and eighth brightest, is less than 10° up in the east.  Deneb, the tail of Cygnus and 14th brightest, is nearly 30° up in the west.

During morning twilight, the triangle is high in the western sky, while the gibbous moon is low in the south-southwest.

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