Star gazers — and wannabe star gazers — will be excited to know that Jupiter is going to be as close to Earth as it has been in 50 years. And that means that if you go outside after dark, you’ll be able to see it, first in the eastern sky and then migrating to the west by sunrise. (It will be the brightest object in the sky besides the moon.) And if you look with good binoculars, you’ll be able to see Jupiter’s four largest moons.
Jupiter is the largest planet in the solar system; with a diameter of 88,846 miles it is more than 11 times larger than Earth. And when we say it’s going to be “close” to Earth, we mean it’s going to be just 368 million miles away. It won’t look that big or bright again until 2022.
By the way, the full moon Wednesday night was a “Harvest Moon,” because it was the full moon that occurred closest to the autumn equinox. In fact, because the Harvest Moon this year occurred on the same night as the autumn equinox, some are calling it a “Super Harvest Moon.” That hasn’t happened since 1991 and it won’t happen again until 2029. (You can see a gorgeous photo of that moon over Coit Tower in this Chronicle photo by Fred Larson.)