Mars meets the Pleiades<\/a><\/p>\nThe planet Mercury stands stationary tonight at 10 P.M. EDT. Mercury was previously moving eastward, or prograde, against the background stars. After today, it will begin retrograde motion, moving westward.\u00a0<\/p>\n
Located in far eastern Gemini, the tiny planet isn\u2019t far from mighty Jupiter, which lies to the east in Cancer. Shining at magnitude 1.7, Mercury sets soon after the Sun. If you want to catch it, you\u2019ll want to be ready with binoculars or a telescope at sunset, but take care not to use these instruments until the Sun has fully disappeared from view.\u00a0<\/p>\n
By 30 minutes after sunset, Venus should be visible, a bright point of light in the western sky. You may also spot Jupiter, fainter but still bright in the falling twilight and far to Venus\u2019 lower right. Mercury lies about 4.3\u00b0 southwest of Jupiter, below and a little to its right. If you can\u2019t spot it by eye, try with your optics. Mercury is just 4.7\u00b0 high at this time, so you\u2019ll need a clear western horizon. If you can get to a location above your surroundings, that will also help.\u00a0<\/p>\n
If you\u2019re able to capture Mercury in a telescope, note how its disk is only a slender crescent. It is now just 15% lit and spans 11\u201d. Compare that to Venus, higher in the sky, which spans 16\u201d and is some 70% lit.\u00a0<\/p>\n
You might also notice the stars Castor and Pollux, the heads of Gemini the Twins, peeking out to Jupiter\u2019s right as the sky starts to darken.<\/p>\n
Sunrise: 5:34 A.M.
Sunset: 8:33 P.M.
Moonrise: 8:04 P.M.
Moonset: 3:58 A.M.
Moon Phase: Waxing gibbous (99%)
*Times for sunrise, sunset, moonrise, and moonset are given in local time from 40\u00b0 N 90\u00b0 W. The Moon\u2019s illumination is given at 10 P.M. local time from the same location.<\/p>\n
Alison Klesman\u00a0is senior editor of\u00a0Astronomy\u00a0magazine. She holds a Ph.D. in astronomy and has studied a variety of topics, from minor planets to supermassive black holes.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Back to Article List The solar system\u2019s smallest planet comes to a standstill in the evening sky, now…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":522378,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7],"tags":[61,60,7882,82,44123],"class_list":["post-522377","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-observing","tag-science","tag-sky-tonight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522377","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=522377"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/522377\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/522378"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=522377"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=522377"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=522377"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}
![\"A](\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ie\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/06282026.png\")
<\/p>\n