NASA says Jupiter is at its closest in 59 years
The planets of the solar system orbit the sun in flattened circles or ellipses, rather than in perfect circles, so Earth and Jupiter cross paths at varying distances.
While Earth takes around 365 days to orbit the sun, Jupiter takes a more leisurely route around the star, completing an orbit every 4,333 Earth days or 12 Earth years. During next week's close approach, NASA the gas giant will be around 367 million miles from our planet, according to the NASA statement. At its farthest, Jupiter is about 600 million miles away from Earth. The last time Jupiter was so close to our planet — and the last time skywatchers could see it so large and bright in the sky — was in October 1963.
The favorable alignments mean that some of Jupiter's most fascinating attributes should be in view from Earth. "With good binoculars, the banding — at least the central band — and three or four of the Galilean satellites should be visible," Kobelski said in the statement."It's important to remember that Galileo observed these moons with 17th-century optics."are the four largest of Jupiter's 79 moons known to date. Named Io, Europa, Ganymede and Callisto, these moons should be visible as bright dots on either side of the gas giant.
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