Weather permitting, a brilliant star-like object outshining every other star in the sky will be seen in the skies over Ireland this evening soon after the Moon rises around 7pm. Just to the lower right of the Full Moon, Jupiter will be clearly visible to the naked eye.

David Moore, Chairman, Astronomy Ireland, said: "The Moon and Jupiter are the two brightest objects in the sky and when they pass close to one another in the sky like this our phone lines start hopping as it is such a spectacular sight to the naked eye. This time we wanted to predict it in advance so the general public would not be alarmed as has happened in the past".

Image
© www.astronomy.ieThe Moon and Jupiter at 8pm on October 13th

How often does this happen?

Jupiter comes close to Earth every year and once or twice the Full Moon will be near Jupiter each time. In fact tonight's scene will be very similar to the view people will have again on November 9th.

Some facts about Jupiter and Moon:

Jupiter is the largest planet going around the Sun. At 88,000 miles wide it is 11 times wider than the Earth. The Moon is tiny in comparison, only 2,160 miles wide, that's 40 times less than Jupiter and one quarter as wide as Earth. However, the Moon is much closer at just one quarter of a million miles away whereas Jupiter is 370 million miles away.

So it's really only a line of sight effect as Jupiter is 1500 times further away than the Moon.
The hottest spots on the Moon are at about 100 degrees Celsius but on Jupiter, which is 5 times further from the Sun, the temperature is only minus 130 degrees Celsius.

So as you stand gazing at both brilliant objects in the night sky just imagine how immensely far away Jupiter is compared to the Moon and how hot it would be if you could reach out and touch each body.