6 Sky Events This Week: Primetime Jupiter, Asteroid Juno, and Zodiacal Light
Jupiter gives its best show of the year, and the elusive pyramids of light put in a rare appearance.
Watch the sky this week to soak in Jupiter's best appearance of 2015. You might also catch sight of a large asteroid and a ghostly light making tracks across the night sky.
Though the two objects may appear to be close together, this is just an optical illusion. In reality, the moon sits 1.3 light-seconds from Earth, while Jupiter is a whopping 36 light-minutes away.
Shining at magnitude 8, the 160-mile-wide (260 kilometers) Juno will be visible with binoculars or small telescopes, floating among the background stars. Juno appears about 3 degrees west of the faint, 4th-magnitude star Delta Hydrae.
The best way to identify and track this giant space rock is to sketch the same star field over a couple of nights.