The planet Jupiter, named after the Roman King of the Gods, dominates the evening skies this summer. During June, Jupiter rises at sunset and sets at dawn, culminating (passing due south) around midnight. How can you find it? As they say, you can’t miss it. Look southeast after dark and further west as the night progresses. Jupiter is currently the brightest star-like object in the night sky. The bright star Antares in Scorpio leads Jupiter on the right and Saturn follows behind and further to the left. Jupiter is a huge ball of cold hydrogen and helium with swirling and blowing storms in excess of 200 miles per hour. One prominent anticyclone storm is as large as the Earth and has been raging for hundreds of years. Jupiter is distant, huge, and violent.

When I was a boy, the official count of Jupiter’s moons was 12. A couple of years ago when I wrote about Jupiter in this column, the official count was 67. Today the count is 79, with several being only rocks the size of Stone Mountain.

The four largest moons were discovered in 1610 when Galileo first turned a telescope on the heavens. Here was a celestial body with objects orbiting around it, a fact that shook the idea of the time that everything circled the Earth. These four moons are referred to as the Galilean moons and they are, in descending size, Ganymede, Callisto, Io, and Europa. The moons of Jupiter are named after Jupiter’s daughters and lovers.

The Galilean moons are much brighter than the others. It took 282 years of telescope advancements for the fifth moon, Amalthea, to be discovered. Galileo’s scope was indeed primitive. You can easily glimpse the four moons with a small telescope, and even a birding scope or a pair of binoculars will do. 

This is a great time to dust off that telescope you got the kids for Christmas. If you have a telescope, use the lowest power eyepiece available. That is the one with the longest focal length in millimeters stamped on the eyepiece. If you have binoculars, steady the binoculars on anything, perhaps the back of a chair, and point at Jupiter. When you find Jupiter, it will be very bright. Focus for smallest size and clarity, and center Jupiter in the view. Look closely and you’ll see the dimmer star-like moons lined up in a line through the center of Jupiter like pearls on a string.

The moons change positions each night as they orbit around Jupiter at different rates. Look carefully and you may see changes by the hour. Sometimes a moon may be behind or in front of Jupiter’s bright surface and will be invisible, so you may see only two or three moons. Some fun alignments are all four moons on one side of Jupiter on June 17 and 27 and two moons on each side on June 11, 14, 16, 22, 25, and 26.

Take you children or grandchildren outside this summer and enjoy the wonders of creation. Heck, you might even experience a sense of childish wonder yourself.