This marks a rather auspicious week, for we will see Jupiter loom as large and as bright as it ever can get from our earthly vantage point.
Jupiter now appears 11-percent larger and more than one and a half times brighter than it did back in April 2017, when it was near aphelion . Even steadily-held 7-power binoculars will show Jupiter as a tiny disk. A small telescope will do much better, while in larger instruments, Jupiter resolves into a series of red, yellow, tan and brown shadings, as well as a wealth of other telescopic detail.
At 10 p.m. Eastern Time on Sunday , Jupiter will make its closest approach to the Earth since 1963. It will then be 367,413,405 miles away. This may not seem exactly"close," but Jupiter is so big and bright that it's not only easily visible with the unaided eye, but through a small telescope magnifying only 36-power, it appears as big as the moon does to the unaided eye. Jupiter has a diameter almost eleven times that of the Earth at 88,846 miles wide.
Jupiter is a hulking giant of a planet, with a mass more than twice that of all the seven other planets lumped together. It has one of the most mysterious blemishes on the face of any planet: thethat comes and goes unpredictably, and is as wide as the Earth. There is also some evidence that Jupiter loses by radiation more heat energy than it acquires from the sun, and therefore it may be producing energy of its own — activity ordinarily more characteristic of a star than a planet.