Jupiter and Mars will share the same right ascension, with Jupiter passing 1°02' to the north of Mars.
At around the same time, the two objects will also make a close approach, technically called an appulse.
From South El Monte , the pair will be difficult to observe as they will appear no higher than 12° above the horizon. They will become visible at around 17:15 (PDT), 12° above your south-western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. They will then sink towards the horizon, setting 1 hour and 59 minutes after the Sun at 18:34.
Jupiter will be at mag -1.9, and Mars at mag 1.2, both in the constellation Sagittarius.
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 | 18h40m40s | 23°10'S | Sagittarius | -1.9 | 31"9 |
| Mars | 18h40m40s | 24°12'S | Sagittarius | 1.2 | 4"2 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 29° from the Sun, which is in Ophiuchus at this time of year.
The sky on 15 Jul 2026
| The sky on 15 July 2026 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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7% 2 days old |
All times shown in PDT.
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Source
The circumstances of this event were computed using the DE440 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.
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Image credit
The Moon in conjunction with Venus and Jupiter, with the Very Large Telescope in the foreground. Image © Y. Beletsky, ESO, 2009.