{"id":709050,"date":"2026-06-17T07:05:18","date_gmt":"2026-06-17T07:05:18","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/709050\/"},"modified":"2026-06-17T07:05:18","modified_gmt":"2026-06-17T07:05:18","slug":"the-sky-today-on-tuesday-june-16-the-moon-meets-up-with-mercury-and-jupiter","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/709050\/","title":{"rendered":"The Sky Today on Tuesday, June 16: The Moon meets up with Mercury and Jupiter"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>\t\t\tBack to Article List\t\t<\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\tA delicate waxing crescent Moon creates an elongated triangle with bright planets Jupiter and Mercury in the evening sky.\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p><\/p>\n<p>\t\t\t\t<img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" width=\"1326\" height=\"917\" src=\"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2026\/06\/Triangle-06162026.png\" class=\"attachment-large size-large wp-post-image\" alt=\"A simulated evening sky looking west on June 16, 2026, 30 minutes after sunset. Venus, Jupiter, and a crescent Moon form a triangle in the warm orange twilight sky. Mercury is visible as a faint dot below and to the right of the Moon, and the Gemini stars Pollux and Castor appear in the upper right.\"\/><\/p>\n<p>\n\t\t\t\t\t\tOn June 16, the delicate waxing crescent Moon creates an elongated triangle with Jupiter and Mercury in the evening sky. Credit: Stellarium\/USGS\/Celestia\/Clementine\t\t\t\t\t<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">Looking for a sky event this week? Check out our full\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/observing\/the-sky-this-week-from-june-12-to-19-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Sky This Week<\/a>\u00a0column.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-center wp-block-paragraph\">June 15: <a href=\"https:\/\/www.astronomy.com\/observing\/the-sky-today-monday-june-15-2026\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Mercury at greatest eastern elongation<\/a><\/p>\n<p class=\"has-text-align-left wp-block-paragraph\">The Moon passes 3\u00b0 north of Mercury at 4 P.M. EDT. Looking west again after sunset this evening, the Moon now sits above Mercury, forming a triangle with Mercury and Jupiter.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Half an hour after sunset, the trio is over 10\u00b0 high; an hour after sunset, they\u2019re still 8\u00b0 above the horizon. The Moon is a slightly wider crescent, now 6% lit as dawn breaks across its surface from east to west. Just north of the Moon, to our satellite\u2019s upper right, is the bright star Pollux in Gemini; to the right of Pollux is slightly fainter Castor. As darkness falls, these stars should be some of the first to pop out of the twilight. It\u2019s a beautiful grouping you should be able to capture with a cellphone camera.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Additionally, Venus still lies to Jupiter\u2019s upper left, shining brightly in Cancer the Crab. Note in particular how far the Moon seems from Venus\u2019 position \u2014 by tomorrow afternoon, our satellite will catch up to the bright planet, passing in front of Venus in a daytime occultation. Stay tuned for details on that event in tomorrow\u2019s entry.\u00a0<\/p>\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Sunrise: 5:31 A.M.<br \/>Sunset: 8:31 P.M.<br \/>Moonrise: 6:50 A.M.<br \/>Moonset: 10:35 P.M.<br \/>Moon Phase: Waxing crescent (6%)<br \/>*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<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">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 A delicate waxing crescent Moon creates an elongated triangle with bright planets Jupiter and&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":709051,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[32],"tags":[70135,79,169673],"class_list":["post-709050","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-science","tag-observing","tag-science","tag-sky-tonight"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709050","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=709050"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/709050\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/709051"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=709050"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=709050"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=709050"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}