Bob Moler's Ephemeris Blog

Tuesday, December 6th.  The sun will rise at 8:04.  It’ll be up for 8 hours and 58 minutes, setting at 5:02.   The moon, half way from first quarter to full, will set at 5:16 tomorrow morning.

This evening the planet Jupiter will appear to the lower right of the moon.  They will appear at their closest at 2 p.m., but that’s before they rise.  Jupiter is the largest of the planets and three of its four largest moons that we can see in small telescopes, are larger than our moon.  Last month I spent a day at the National Radio Astronomy Observatory in Green Bank West Virginia.  One of the studies they were doing was a radar study of the Jovian moon Europa to see if the suspected ocean that separates the moon’s core from its surface would cause the surface to slip a bit and show that Europa’s not completely solid.  Radar pulses would be sent from Aricebo in Puerto Rico to be received by their GBT 100 meter telescope.

* Times, as always are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.

Addendum

Jupiter and the moon the evening of December 6, 2011. Created using Stellarium