The Moon and Jupiter will make a close approach, passing within 5°40' of each other. The Moon will be 20 days old.
From Cambridge , the pair will be visible in the morning sky, becoming accessible around 22:29, when they reach an altitude of 7° above your eastern horizon. They will then reach their highest point in the sky at 03:54, 50° above your southern horizon. They will be lost to dawn twilight around 06:49, 34° above your south-western horizon.
The Moon will be at mag -12.5; and Jupiter will be at mag -2.3. Both objects will lie in the constellation Virgo.
They will be too widely separated to fit within the field of view of a telescope or pair of binoculars, but will be visible to the naked eye.
At around the same time, the pair will also share the same right ascension – called a conjunction.
A graph of the angular separation between the Moon and Jupiter around the time of closest approach is available here.
The positions of the pair at the moment of closest approach will be as follows:
| Object | Right Ascension | Declination | Constellation | Magnitude | Angular Size |
| The Moon | 11h41m10s | 2°41'S | Virgo | -12.5 | 32'30"4 |
| Jupiter | 11h51m20s | 2°23'N | Virgo | -2.3 | 39"4 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 118° from the Sun, which is in Sagittarius at this time of year.
The sky on 16 Jan 2028
| The sky on 16 January 2028 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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68% 20 days old |
All times shown in EST.
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Source
The circumstances of this event were computed using the DE430 planetary ephemeris published by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
This event was automatically generated by searching the ephemeris for planetary alignments which are of interest to amateur astronomers, and the text above was generated based on an estimate of your location.
Related news
| 12 Jan 2028 | – Jupiter enters retrograde motion |
| 12 Mar 2028 | – Jupiter at opposition |
| 13 May 2028 | – Jupiter ends retrograde motion |
| 10 Feb 2029 | – Jupiter enters retrograde motion |
Image credit
The Moon in conjunction with Venus and Jupiter, with the Very Large Telescope in the foreground. Image © Y. Beletsky, ESO, 2009.