Jupiter to cozy up to Earth at midnight

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Published Sunday, December 30, 2001

Jupiter to cozy up to Earth at midnight

BY SETH BORENSTEIN, Herald Washington Bureau

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WASHINGTON -- Jupiter will ring in the new year by looming directly overhead at midnight, as close to Earth as it will get all year.

This coincidence of the Earth's orbit and Jupiter's hasn't occurred since 1752 and won't happen again until New Year's Eve 2084, said Jack Horkheimer, director of the Miami Space Transit Planetarium.

Moreover, Jupiter will be cozying up to a bright and nearly full moon.

``It's kind of poetic to end this year of tragedy and soul-searching with the biggest planet of them all and our closest neighbor just bathing us in planetary light,'' Horkheimer said.

As many astronomers are, Horkheimer is fond of Jupiter, the fourth brightest object in the heavens after the sun, moon and Venus. Because Jupiter is so big -- 318 times heavier than Earth -- its greater gravitational pull sucks in many killer comets and asteroids that had been on course to hit Earth.

Its size and proximity -- a mere 390 million miles distant -- will make Jupiter easy to see all night Monday. It will rise in the east as the sun sets and set in the west as the sun rises.

[Mind your head.] :)

-- Anonymous, December 30, 2001


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