April 2, 2025: The moon appears near Jupiter after sunset. Mars is nearby. Brilliant Venus is in the east during bright morning twilight.
by Jeffrey L. Hunt
Chicago, Illinois: Sunrise, 6:31 a.m. CDT; Sunset, 7:18 p.m. CDT. Check local sources for sunrise and sunset times. Times are calculated by the US Naval Observatory’s MICA computer program.
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VENUS AS A MORNING STAR, 2025
Morning Planets
Brilliant Venus is the lone bright planet that is visible before sunrise. It appears over 5° up in the east at 30 minutes before daybreak. Find a clear horizon in that direction. A view across a natural horizon from an elevated structure improves the view.
Venus rises a few minutes earlier each morning compared to sunrise.
Saturn and Mercury are hidden by bright morning twilight. They rise less than 40 minutes before sunup.
Pretty Jupiter-Moon Conjunction
In the evening sky, Jupiter and the moon appear together in the western sky. Jupiter, brighter than all the stars in the sky this evening, is 5.3° to the lower left of the lunar crescent, 28% illuminated.
This conjunction occurs with Taurus where Jupiter rambles eastward, about midway from Aldebaran, the Bull’s brightest star, and Elnath and Zeta Tauri, the horns. Watch the planet’s eastward movement from night to night.
On April 30th, the moon appears with Jupiter and the horns. This is the last easily-observed Jupiter-Moon conjunction for this appearance of the planet.
Later tonight – tomorrow evening in Indonesia – the moon occults or eclipses Elnath.
Can You See Earthshine?
The moon brightens each evening. Tonight, look to see whether the moonlight is lighting up the landscape and casting shadows. At this moon phase, use a binocular to spot the Pleiades star cluster as well as the “V” of Taurus, made by Aldebaran and the Hyades cluster.
This is likely the last evening to see earthshine. As the moon waxes for earth-bound sky watchers, Earth wanes (and dims) as seen from the moon’s surface. Our world is 72% illuminated from the moon. Earth reflects less light each night, causing earthshine to fade as the moon phase brightens. The soft light can be seen on the moon by over-exposing photographs or looking carefully with a binocular or spotting scope.
Mars and Gemini
The third bright planet, Mars, is high in the south-southwest, nearly 40° to Jupiter’s upper left. It marches eastward in front of Gemini, near the Twins. Tonight, it is 8.3° to the lower left of Castor and 4.1° to Pollux’s lower left. In a week, it lies along an imaginary line that begins at Castor and extends through Pollux. On the 12th, it struts into Cancer’s boundary, enroute to a conjunction with the Beehive cluster.
During the night, Jupiter and Moon set in the west-northwest around midnight, followed by Mars nearly three hours later and less than three hours before sunrise. Tomorrow morning, Venus rises 71 minutes before sunrise and again appears low in the east during bright morning twilight.
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