Max Goes to Jupiter: A Science Adventure with Max the Dog

Max Goes to Jupiter: A Science Adventure with Max the Dog — page 3
Max was ready His training was complete and his spacesuit fit perfectly In a few days he would be bound for Jupiter Tori now all grown up would be the mission’s chief scientist Jupiter in the Night Sky Have you ever seen Jupiter in the night sky Probably so even if you don’t realize it because Jupiter outshines all the objects in the night sky except the Moon and Venus Of course we don’t always see Jupiter just as we don’t always see the Moon or Venus Sometimes Jupiter lies in the same direction as the Sun and is up above our horizon only in the daytime when we can’t see it At most other times Jupiter is visible only for part of the night We can see Jupiter all night long only when it is directly opposite the Sun as viewed from Earth The diagram below shows that this hap pens whenever Earth and Jupiter are aligned on the same side of their orbits around the Sun which occurs about every 13 months Notice that Jupiter is also at its closest to Earth at these times so these are the times when Jupiter appears brightest in our night sky Jupiter Earth 1 y Sun ear for ea c h orbit 12 years for ea c h or b it On nights when Jupiter is visible you’ll notice that it moves with the stars from east to west across the sky We see this east-to west movement because Earth rotates from west to east To find out if you can see Jupiter tonight go to www BigKidScience com Jupiter