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Planet Jupiter is coming to its closest point to near the Earth tonight. This will be Jupiter’s closest approach to Earth since 1963 coming so close that several of its moons will also be strikingly noticeable, NASA said.
NASA reports that the enormous gas planet will be seen when it approaches opposition, which occurs every 13 months and causes it to rise in the east as the sun sets in the west.
Jupiter’s orbit hasn’t taken the gas giant this close to Earth since 1963, which makes this event special and provides an exceptional opportunity to glimpse the largest object in the solar system.
Jupiter and Earth are in opposition because of their elliptical orbits around the sun, which are not exact circles but instead are elongated orbits. This means that as the two planets go around the sun, their distance from one another changes.
Rarely does opposition coincide with Jupiter’s closest approach to Earth, but this year it does, making this close approach to the blue planet unique.
Jupiter will be nearly twice as close to Earth at its closest point, when it will be just 367 million miles away, compared to when it is 600 million miles away at its furthest point.
The Great Red Spot, one of Jupiter’s most well-known features, was discovered in 1665 by Italian astronomer Giovanni Cassini. According to Space.com, this location is actually a long-lasting anticyclonic storm that is south of the planet’s equator and was produced by Jupiter’s turbulent and swiftly moving atmosphere.
This storm is enormous, extending over 15,000 miles across and nearly 8,900 miles high, and has been raging for at least 350 years. In fact, it is so big that three planets the size of Earth might fit inside of it.
If someone tried to leap onto Jupiter from a spaceship, it would be over quite quickly since there isn’t a solid surface to land on. They couldn’t get closer than 200,000 miles from the earth because radiation would seep through their spacesuits and kill them.
