Moon & Jupiter Conjunction

On May 27, 2018, look for an attractive evening couple – the Moon and Jupiter – as soon as darkness falls. They’ll be out almost all night long and be easy to spot.

Jupiter, the fifth planet outward from the Sun and the largest planet in our Solar System, is currently the second-brightest starlike object in the evening sky, after the planet Venus.

The Moon appears much larger than Jupiter in our sky, but that’s only because the Moon is so much closer. At present, the Moon lies nearly 245 thousand miles (394 thousand kilometers) away, while Jupiter lies far beyond the Moon, at nearly 1,700 times the Moon’s distance from Earth.

Jupiter is truly the giant world in our Solar System. The diameter of Jupiter is about 11 times that of our planet Earth.

Jupiter is some 318 times more massive than our planet Earth. The king planet is more than twice as massive as all the other Solar System planets, dwarf planets, minor planet and moons combined.