In Lighter Fare -- Look For Lord Jupiter, In December's Mid-Evening Skies: Here's How To Spot It!

For our own peace of mind, I think we must look away from the mess that Tangerine is now making (at least from time to time) -- and smile again, at these celestial wonders -- right out there, in our backyards, available with even a small telescope, or binoculars. This is certainly good for the soul: crisp single digit night air in our lungs, a "Distant Suns" app in the phone for siting (Location Services ON!), a mug of hot cocoa, steaming near at hand. . . and rising. . . to the northwest over most of North America. . . is mighty Lord Jupiter (through all of December 2024, but I'll see it best, later in the month, when down in Arizona).

[Just one of thousands, by way of backgrounders, here.] And, here's the latest, from NASA:

. . .Jupiter is easy to observe at night with our unaided eyes, as well-documented by the ancient astronomers who carefully recorded its slow movements from night to night. It can be one of the brightest objects in our nighttime skies, bested only by the Moon, Venus, and occasionally Mars, when the red planet is at opposition. That’s impressive for a planet that, at its closest to Earth, is still over 365 million miles (587 million km) away. It’s even more impressive that the giant world remains very bright to Earthbound observers at its furthest distance: 600 million miles (968 million km)! While the King of Planets has a coterie of 95 known moons, only the four large moons that Galileo originally observed in 1610 – Io, Europa, Ganymede, and Calisto – can be easily observed by Earth-based observers with very modest equipment. . . .

Jupiter’s position as our solar system’s largest planet is truly earned; you could fit 11 Earths along Jupiter’s diameter, and in case you were looking to fill up Jupiter with some Earth-size marbles, you would need over 1300 Earths to fill it up – and that would still not be quite enough! However, despite its formidable size, Jupiter’s true rule over the outer solar system comes from its enormous mass.

If you took all of the planets in our solar system and put them together, they would still only be half as massive as Jupiter all by itself. Jupiter’s mighty mass has shaped the orbits of countless comets and asteroids. Its gravity can fling these tiny objects towards our inner solar system and also draw them into itself, as famously observed in 1994 when Comet Shoemaker-Levy 9, drawn towards Jupiter in previous orbits, smashed into the gas giant’s atmosphere. Its multiple fragments slammed into Jupiter’s cloud tops with such violence that the fireballs and dark impact spots were not only seen by NASA’s orbiting Galileo probe but also by observers back on Earth. . . .

Now you know. Do. Not. Let. His. Malignancy. Keep. You. Down. Onward -- grinning anew!

नमस्ते