{"id":640868,"date":"2026-08-16T23:15:26","date_gmt":"2026-08-16T23:15:26","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/640868\/"},"modified":"2026-08-16T23:15:26","modified_gmt":"2026-08-16T23:15:26","slug":"the-sky-today-on-saturday-august-15-a-conjunction-of-mercury-and-jupiter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/640868\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sky Today on\u00a0Saturday, August 15: A conjunction of Mercury and Jupiter"},"content":{"rendered":"

\t\t\tBack to Article List\t\t<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\tThe Red Planet meets the solar system\u2019s most massive world early this morning as they two float among the stars of Gemini. \t\t\t<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\t\t\t\t\"The<\/p>\n

\n\t\t\t\t\t\tOn Aug. 15, Mercury and Jupiter meet in Cancer, rising shortly before the Sun. M44 will only be visible to observers at higher altitudes with binoculars. Credit: Astronomy: Roen Kelly\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n

Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full\u00a0Sky This Week<\/a>\u00a0column.\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n

August 14: Mars meets M35<\/a><\/strong><\/p>\n

Mercury and Jupiter meet in a close conjunction this morning, as Mercury passes just 0.6\u00b0 north of Jupiter at 5 A.M. EDT. The pair rises an hour before the Sun, some 3\u00b0 southeast of open cluster M44, which Mercury skimmed past yesterday morning.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Mercury shines at magnitude \u20131.2 and sits just to the upper right of brighter Jupiter, which is magnitude \u20131.8. You can easily capture both in binoculars or a telescope, making clear the vast differences in their size. Mercury lies 1.2 astronomical units from Earth \u2014 1 astronomical unit, or AU, is the average Earth-Sun distance of 93 million miles (150 million kilometers). Its disk spans 6\u201d on the sky and appears 85% lit. Jupiter, which lies nearly 6.3 AU from Earth, still spans many times Mercury\u2019s apparent diameter, stretching 31\u201d across and appearing fully lit.\u00a0<\/p>\n

East Coast observers may see the Galilean moon Io transiting the disk as Jupiter rises; the transit ends around 6:20 A.M. EDT, shortly after the planet rises in the Midwest but while it is likely too low to see well in the murky air near the horizon in that time zone. After that, Io lies alone to the planet\u2019s west, while Europa, Callisto, and Ganymede all sit to the east.<\/p>\n

Make sure to put away any optics well before the time of sunrise from your location to avoid even accidentally glimpsing the Sun and harming your vision.<\/p>\n

By tomorrow morning, the two planets will have separated, putting about 2\u00b0 between them. Mercury will have also brightened slightly, reaching magnitude \u20131.3.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Also this morning, Venus reaches greatest eastern elongation at 2 A.M. EDT, standing 46\u00b0 from the Sun. It isn\u2019t visible before dawn but appears in the western sky after sunset. Look for it just to the upper left of the waxing crescent Moon this evening, slowly sinking as the sky grows darker. Both are located in Virgo, not far from the lovely double star Porrima (Gamma [\u03b3] Virginis). They disappear about 90 minutes after sunset. <\/p>\n

Sunrise:<\/strong> 6:12 A.M.
Sunset:<\/strong> 7:57 P.M.
Moonrise:<\/strong> 9:29 A.M.
Moonset:<\/strong> 9:22 P.M.
Moon Phase:<\/strong> Waxing crescent (14%)
*Times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset are given in local time from 40\u00b0 N 90\u00b0 W. The Moon\u2019s illumination is given at 10 P.M. local time from the same location.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Alison Klesman<\/strong>\u00a0is senior editor of\u00a0Astronomy\u00a0magazine. She holds a Ph.D. in astronomy and has studied a variety of topics, from minor planets to supermassive black holes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back to Article List The Red Planet meets the solar system\u2019s most massive world early this morning as…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":640869,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[270],"tags":[18,19,17,2209,133,75779,451],"class_list":["post-640868","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-space","tag-eire","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-observing","tag-science","tag-sky-tonight","tag-space"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/117107736837339878","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640868","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=640868"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/640868\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/640869"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=640868"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=640868"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=640868"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}