November 11, 2025: Jupiter’s retrograde begins tonight, marking the start of its westward motion against Gemini’s stars. Watch the Jovian Giant rise earlier each night as Earth overtakes it, leading to opposition and a transition from the morning sky to evening visibility.
by Jeffrey L. Hunt
Chicago, Illinois: Sunrise, 6:36 a.m. CST; Sunset, 4:33 p.m. CST. Times are calculated by the US Naval Observatory’s MICA computer program. Check local sources for sunrise and sunset times.
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Daylight at Chicago’s latitude is three minutes short of 10 hours. As the sun appears farther southward along the horizon, the length of daylight diminishes. By month’s end, daylight is 34 minutes shorter than today.
Jupiter’s Retrograde Begins
Jupiter’s retrograde begins tonight. The planet’s eastward motion ends, and it appears to move westward against Gemini’s distant stars. The Twins—Castor and Pollux—are the two brighter stars near Jupiter. The constellation resembles two side-by-side stick figures, with the two stars marking their heads.
Jupiter does not stop moving eastward in its revolution around the sun. As faster-moving Earth overtakes Jupiter and the other outer planets—those with orbits beyond Earth’s—they seem to stop and move westward as Earth moves past.
Opposition—when Earth is between the sun and Jupiter—occurs about every 400 days. At each successive opposition, Earth needs about an extra month to catch up, since Jupiter moves about 30° along its orbit each Earth year.
In the sky, retrograde begins when Jupiter is about 115° west of the sun and ends when it is the same distance east of the sun. When a planet is west of the sun, it is visible in the morning sky; when east of the sun, it appears after sundown.
Jupiter Retrogrades near Pollux and Castor
During retrograde, Jupiter appears to move 10° westward—about the width across your knuckles at arm’s length. It passes Pollux (6.5°) on December 13 for the second of three conjunctions, followed by another with Castor (9.8°) on January 5.
Each night, Jupiter and the background stars rise earlier. At opposition, the planet rises in the east-northeast at sunset and sets in the west-northwest at sunrise. After opposition, Jupiter is higher in the eastern sky at nightfall.
When retrograde ends, Jupiter is high in the southern sky as darkness falls. Later in spring, a Venus–Jupiter conjunction occurs on June 10, followed by a striking display of Venus, Jupiter, Mercury, and the moon on June 16 and 17. Jupiter then disappears into evening twilight during early July.
Watch Jupiter retrograde as it shifts from the morning sky to evening visibility.
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