Conjunction of Jupiter and Mars

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Conjunctions feed


Jupiter and Mars will share the same right ascension, with Jupiter passing 1°47' to the north of Mars.

At around the same time, the two objects will also make a close approach, technically called an appulse.

From Columbus , the pair will become visible at around 21:34 (EST), 29° above your south-western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. They will then sink towards the horizon, setting 3 hours and 30 minutes after the Sun at 00:25.

Jupiter will be at mag -2.0, and Mars at mag 0.6, both in the constellation Virgo.

The pair will be too widely separated to fit within the field of view of a telescope, but will be visible to the naked eye or through a pair of binoculars.

A graph of the angular separation between Jupiter and Mars around the time of closest approach is available here.

The positions of the two objects at the moment of conjunction will be as follows:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Jupiter 13h12m10s 6°20'S Virgo -2.0 34"9
Mars 13h12m10s 8°08'S Virgo 0.6 7"2

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 80° from the Sun, which is in Cancer at this time of year.

The sky on 21 Jul 2029

The sky on 21 July 2029
Sunrise
06:17
Sunset
20:55
Twilight ends
22:49
Twilight begins
04:23


Waxing Gibbous

83%

10 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 07:20 14:31 21:41
Venus 08:54 15:42 22:30
Moon 17:50 22:26 03:02
Mars 13:09 18:45 00:20
Jupiter 13:02 18:44 00:26
Saturn 01:57 08:57 15:57
All times shown in EDT.

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

13 Jun 2029  –  Jupiter ends retrograde motion
13 Mar 2030  –  Jupiter enters retrograde motion
13 May 2030  –  Jupiter at opposition
14 Jul 2030  –  Jupiter ends 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.

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