Happy New Year! Welcome to January. Our first month features Jupiter’s closest approach for the year, and plenty of bright stars to view. Nights will be cold and mostly cloudy, but step outside when skies clear for a stunning view, even if it is a short one!
Some things coming in 2026: We’ll have two total Lunar eclipses during the year. One will come on March 3, and a second will follow on Aug. 27. We will just miss a solar eclipse that will occur on Aug. 12, visible in Iceland, Greenland, and Spain. Northern Canada will see a partial eclipse.
Solar activity in 2026 should still be high (the Sun has a roughly 11-year cycle of activity, and we are just past the peak), so there is a chance to see more northern lights. National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration (NOAA) has a nice prediction website that gives short-term predictions at www.swpc.noaa.gov/products/aurora-viewline-tonight-and-tomorrow-night-experimental.
The solar system’s giant, Jupiter, makes its closest approach to us on Jan. 10. Jupiter will be “only” about 393 million miles from us. At freeway speed, 70 mph, it would take about 640 years to drive that far. The solar system is huge! Jupiter will be located in the constellation Gemini during December.
Take out a pair of binoculars and point them at Jupiter. You should be able to see the planet’s four largest moons, Europa, Calliston, Io and Ganymede, “lined up” in a strait line, along the planet’s equator. If you look on another night, you’ll see that the moons have changed position as they orbit Jupiter. Check out the website shallowsky.com/galilean to see which moon is which. You can enter a date and time, and see the four moons, along with Jupiter. Change the date and time, and you’ll see that they shift positions as they orbit the planet. When Galileo observed this in 1610, with the newly invented telescope, it was a historic discovery.
Saturn is still in the evening sky in January. The solar system’s other giant will be located in the southwestern sky, in the dim constellations Aquarius and Pisces, below the “square” of Pegasus. Saturn will outshine nearby stars and should be easy to pick out.
January’s full Moon will occur on the 3rd, when the Moon lies just to the left of Jupiter. The waning gibbous Moon will lie below the constellation Leo on the 6th, and will lie just to the right of the bright star Spica in the morning sky on the 10th. In the evening sky, the Moon will lie just to the right of Saturn on the 22nd.
Stay warm, and enjoy the January night skies when you can!
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