Caoimhín's Content

Today, we are going to look ahead into the future. If you are a regular reader of the posts on this website, then you know that I regularly get suggested different things to take a look at in the sky, often future events. We are going quite far into the future this time and we’re going to be taking a look at the planet Jupiter. What exactly we’re going to see is usually a surprise until we look ahead to find out.

We are going all the way forward to the year 7541 this time, so we are going quite far into the future for this one. This may be the furthest into the future that we’ve gone with these predictions, at least so far. We are taking a look for the planet Jupiter and of course, we’re so far into the future here, I have no idea where the planet Jupiter is going to be. Given that it was suggested, it’s almost definitely in the sky somewhere. The suggested date was the 18th of January, and by moving the night on that date, Jupiter rises right next to Saturn. Immediately, it’s clear that the two planets are incredibly close in the sky. It looks like it’s almost an occultation, but under closer inspection it is a very, very close conjunction. Zooming in, we’ve easily got Jupiter and Saturn in one field of view. Some of Jupiter’s moons and Saturn’s moons are visible together, in the same view and at the same time. As we follow the planets across the sky, they will appear to tilt as we go from one horizon to the other. This tilting happens because we’re following Jupiter across its highest point in the sky, where the ecliptic will seem almost parallel to the horizon, down to the sides where the line intersects the horizon. Due to this, things are going to look like they’re tilting a little bit as you follow them through the night, but this is just down to the rotation of the Earth ad out perspective.

It looks like the two planets aren’t occulting each other, and they don’t seem to get closer together on the 18th. From Ireland at least it seems like the ground might be getting in the way, but we can remove that and watch the planets as they move under the horizon. For a span of days, this is about as close as Saturn and Jupiter are getting, they’re not getting much closer together as we move before the 18th or ahead of the 18th. However, it looks like they’re staying very close together in the sky, which suggests to me that they are both very close to the ecliptic, but they’re not actually going to occult one another and aren’t truly on the same plane from our perspective. Bringing them back into a position where they would be visible here in Ireland, they’re above the horizon and visible in darkness.

Taking a closer look again, we can see all of Jupiter’s large moons, and the Great Red Spot will come into view. Looking very early in the morning of the 18th, just 4:50 in the morning here and Jupiter is visible with all of its moons. I say all of Jupiter’s moons, I really only mean the four Galilean ones. The four Galilean moons are often visible altogether, but not every night, so seeing all four of them with a conjunction is nice. Jupiter has many other small moons as well. Taking a closer look at Saturn, the rings look absolutely fantastic, we’re sort of looking up at the rings from below allowing us to see Saturn’s southern pole. A very different point of view to the one that we have at the moment, where Saturn’s rings look incredibly, incredibly thin. We can see many of Saturn’s moons, partly because of how tilted Saturn is, as these moons go around Saturn’s equator, they’ll appear to be going above and below the planet, and the rings seem to arc above and below the planet as well. This is an incredibly close conjunction between Saturn and Jupiter and they both look amazing during it. Jupiter is illuminated 99.4% and Saturn is illuminated 99.8%, so they’re both very close to their oppositions as well.

If we move through more time, they do eventually get closer together, we just have to move a little bit further into the future. They still don’t occult, but they get even closer together. Unfortunately, at their closest they’re not visible from here in Ireland. We’ll get rid of the ground and the atmosphere again just to see how close they get. They do get very close, but it’s almost as if Jupiter is sliding past underneath Saturn as we keep moving ahead in time. Coming back a little bit puts them back at their closest. This happens close to the middle of the day for us here in Ireland, just after 2 o’clock. However, on the 9th day of the 2nd month 7541, we’ve got this incredibly close conjunction of Jupiter and Saturn and to the naked eye that’s going to look pretty much like an occultation. We’re only seeing them at their closest because we’ve gotten rid of the atmosphere and the ground so everything looks perfect, nothing’s going to be getting in our way, but this is definitely going to be seen best from a different location on Earth. Moving back in time a little bit here, we’ll come back to 1 o’clock for us here in Ireland on the 9th of February, and that lets us see Jupiter’s Great Red Spot and the four Galilean moons, with Callisto pretty far out from Jupiter. The big moons of Saturn are all visible as well.

Due to the size of the gas giants, they will look great through a telescope. A very high powered telescope will usually have a field of view too narrow to see both planets together. Going to go down to a lower powered telescope, and even a slightly wider field of view brings in new sights. With a reasonably large telescope, Jupiter’s Great Red Spot is visible with Saturn’s moons visible behind Jupiter. That’s already a crazy view to get. With a reasonably small telescope, a Meade ETX90 with a multiplier 2 Barlow lens, we’ve got Jupiter’s Great Red Spot, some of Jupiter’s largest moons, most of Saturn’s largest moons, Saturn and its rings, all visible there together. As I mentioned, their closest isn’t going to be visible from here in Ireland, but this isn’t going to be visible until the year 7541 anyway, so we do have a long time to wait. Oddly enough, the closest I could get wasn’t the date that I was told to go and have a look at. I was told to go and have a look at the 18th of January, and on that date they do look very nice in the sky and we can see the moons there nice and clearly as well. So that’s coming up thousands of years into the future, that’s something we’ve got to look forward to.

We are going to continue forward. I do try to take a look at multiple events whenever we look forward into the future, you know, while we’re going forward into the future, we might as well look at a few different things. So we’re going to continue just a little bit further into the future. We’re still in the 7000s, we’re going forward just 40 years to 7581 years A.D., that is how far forward we’re looking. So we’re only looking forward about 5,500 years and a bit, but this time instead of looking for Jupiter, we’re looking for Saturn. We do also need to change the month, we’re not looking at January anymore, we’re looking all the way forward into July, but I do believe we are still looking at the 18th. On the 18th of July 7581 we need to look for Saturn. We’ve moved a couple of decades ahead but here we go again with Saturn and Jupiter right next to each other in the sky. To see how close to opposition both of these are we can check how full, or illuminated, they are. At 100% they must be almost perfectly at opposition and both of the planets are 100%. It looks like in the year 7581, Jupiter and Saturn will be pretty much coming to opposition at the same time, right in summertime. We’ve got another great view of Jupiter, with the Galilean moons and the Great Red Spot, all visible all at the same time. Zooming in a lot closer brings out some of the non-Galilean Jovian satellites. They are there as well, but they are so much smaller and so much harder to see, very difficult even through a telescope. The Galilean moons are much easier to spot.

Taking a look at Saturn here and the tilt has changed drastically, since 7541, we’re now seeing more of the North Pole and we’re not seeing quite as much of the rings. A little bit of the bottom of the planet sticks out below them and we can see that the top of planet poking over the rings behind it. We are seeing Saturn’s shadow on its ring thanks to the tilt, but it is directly behind the planet so we know that it’s very close to opposition, even if it wasn’t for the 100% illumination letting us know. Again, they are really close together. To see if we can get them closer, we’re going to move back several months and we’ll move forward several months to check it they get closer. It looks like they only get further apart. If we get rid of the ground and the atmosphere again, we will see why a little bit better, as Jupiter goes through its retrograde motion. Focusing on Saturn to keep it in view, so Saturn’s not going to appear to move, Jupiter appears to come close to Saturn and then it appears to move the opposite way. This is something that planets further from the Sun than us do around their moment of opposition, that’s another great sign that these giant gas planets are at opposition at the same time. With Jupiter, we can see its motion changing in front of the stars. Saturn is also going to be doing the same thing, but much more gradually over a longer time span, so it is harder to notice the change in direction. What’s happening is the Earth is essentially catching up to Saturn and Jupiter and then overtaking them as we continue around the Sun so much faster than they do.

With this back and forth motion, it seems their closest approach is pretty much on May 17th of the year 7581. Just beneath them is Zuben Hakrabi. That’s a bright star in Libra, even though the Arabic name would imply that it’s something to do with the Scorpion. That’s a little quirk that we’ve covered in previous videos. Either way, it’s still a fantastic view of Jupiter, we’re still getting the Great Red Spot. This is 4 o’clock in the morning, so this would be above the horizon for us here in Ireland, way forward in the year 7581.

All in all, there are some fantastic opportunities to look at Jupiter and Saturn coming up in the next couple of thousand years. I hope that you enjoyed seeing a preview of them here and I’m sure you look forward to seeing them in person, 5,500 and a bit years into the future. I hope that you enjoyed seeing them here if you don’t get to see them then and if you did enjoy this piece then please do like it. If you like this kind of content, then please subscribe to this website and my YouTube channel. Thank you very much for watching and hopefully I’ll see you back here next time.