A few days ago, it has been possible to notice the absence of Jupiter in the night celestial landscape. Since last week, for example, the gaseous giant It is only seen for a few minutes after the Sunalready close to the horizon line.
He is approaching a moment called by solar conjunction astronomers, from which he will “disappear” completely from the night sky, plunging into solar brightness for a few weeks.
During his maximum approach with the sun, Jupiter will be 08 ° 08 ′ Distance from the star, which will happen on Tuesday (24) at 12:05 (Brasília time)-according to the Astronomical Observation Guide Inthesky.org.
Second MARCELO ZURITAPresident of the Paraibana Association of Astronomy (APA), member of the Brazilian Astronomical Society (SAB), technical director of the Brazilian Network of Observation of Meteoros (Bramon) and columnist for Digital LookThis occurs once in each synodal cycle of the planet, which is the period required for a planetary body to reach the same position on the sun, when observed from the earth – which in Jupiter’s case is 399 days.
“Jupiter should reappear in the sky in July, late in the morning, in the east direction. On August 12, the gaseous giant will be in a very close conjunction with Venus,” explains Zurita. “From there, each night, he will be higher in heaven, until his next opposition, which will be on January 10, 2026.”
Two days after its maximum approach with the sun, Jupiter will pass through apoge – Your point farther from Earth – reaching a distance of 6.16 astronomical (UA) units of our planet, that is, more than six times the distance between us and the sun, which is approximately 150 million km. This means that it will be about 924 million km from here.
Jupiter was once twice as
An article published last month in the magazine Nature Astronomy It brings surprising information about the largest planet in the solar system. The study reveals how Jupiter influenced the formation of other planets, acting as a true cosmic “architect” by shaping their orbits and reorganizing the gas and dust disc around the sun.
The research was conducted by scientists Konstantin Batygin of the California Institute of Technology (Caltech) and Fred Adams from the University of Michigan in the US. They analyzed how Jupiter was about 3.8 million years after the emergence of the first solid materials in the space around the sun, at a time when the so -called protopaplanetary nebula was disappearing. Learn more here.
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