Jupiter and Mercury Pair Up in Twilight March 13-16

S&T: Jupiter & Mercury Pair Up in Twilight, March 13-16 Two bright planets will shine close together low in the western twilight from Sunday to Wednesday, March 13 to 16. Anyone can see them with the naked eye. You’ll just need a clear sky and an open view toward the west roughly 40 minutes after sunset, as twilight fades.

Jupiter is the brighter of the two. “Mercury is pretty hard to see most of the time, so a lot of people have never spotted it in their lives,” says Alan MacRobert, a senior editor of Sky & Telescope magazine. “With Jupiter guiding the way, now’s your chance.” The graphic in the link above shows where to look.

Jupiter has dominated the evening sky for several months, but now it’s on its way down and out for the season. It’ll be gone in another couple of weeks. Mercury, on the other hand, will climb a little higher in the western twilight by late March. (This refers to viewers in the world’s mid-northern latitudes, including the United States, Canada, southern Europe, and elsewhere between about 30 degrees and 50 degrees north latitude.)

The two planets will appear closest together on Monday and Tuesday, March 14th and 15th, when they’ll be only about 2 degrees apart — about the width of your thumb held at arm’s length.

Although the two planets appear close together, they’re not. Jupiter is more than 5 times farther away, at a distance of 550 million miles compared to Mercury’s 102 million miles. That means the light we see from them takes 49 minutes and 9 minutes, respectively, to reach us.

“Don’t miss this chance to do a little astronomy from your backyard, balcony, or rooftop,” says Sky & Telescope associate editor Tony Flanders. “It’s a big universe, and planets await.”

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For more skywatching information and astronomy news, visit SkyandTelescope.com or pick up Sky & Telescope, the essential magazine of astronomy since 1941.

Contacts:
Alan MacRobert
Senior Editor
+1 617-864-7360 x2151
macrobert@SkyandTelescope.com

Tony Flanders
Associate Editor
+1 617-864-7360 x2173
tflanders@SkyandTelescope.com

Text, graphics, and animation:
http://www.skyandtelescope.com/about/pressreleases/117533339.html