| Stepping out to stargaze on a late spring night is as much about the delight of finding our place in our celestial neighborhood as experiencing the rush of surprise encounters out there in the dark as life on Earth celebrates renewal. The pace has picked up. We look up and are stunned by the appearance of fully leafed-out, luxuriant trees. Deep in a city park or on a country lane, we breathe flower-scented air and listen – frogs are singing. And, yes, that blinking light is the first firefly making starlight close to the ground.
Mars and Saturn are at their brightest and visible from nightfall until before dawn.
On May 30, Mars orbits closest to Earth. Then, at 3am on June 3, Saturn arrives at opposition to the sun, with planet Earth between the two. The sun shines directly on Saturn, making Saturn brightest in our skies around the time of its opposition, from the 1st to the 3rd. Mars and Jupiter have already peaked and are very gradually losing brilliance, as will Saturn after the 3rd.
Be drawn into this eventful period in our planet’s relationship to the others in our solar system. Contemplate the events through observation and the diagrams that follow.
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| Not to scale. An opposition takes place when Earth goes between Saturn and the sun. June 2 – 3 Via theakumalian.com |
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| Largest to smallest are pictured left to right, top to bottom: Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune, Earth, Venus, Mars, Mercury |
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