Tonight January 10th we will admire the most beautiful show of January 2026, Jupiter in opposition. The King of the Solar System (as NASA defined it) will be at its maximum brightness and at its minimum distance from our Planet, aligned between the Sun and Earth: it means that we will be able to see the Gas Giant perfectly to the naked eye (weather permitting) at its peak. Don’t miss it!
The absolute protagonist star of the month will be Jupiter – writes the UAI – On January 10th the expected opposition to the Sun of the giant planet occurs. As usual in these circumstances, the planet is in the best conditions of observability, remaining visible throughout the night, on its path from the eastern sky in the first part of the night, to the south in the central hours and to the west before dawn. Jupiter also reaches its maximum brightness, being at its minimum distance from Earth, which this year will be around 633 million km, and will also have its largest apparent size if observed through a telescope.
As INAF explainsthe opposition is an alignment with the planet that is on the opposite side of the Earth from the Sun. For this to happen at night, the planet must be beyond Earth’s orbit. And in this situation the planet offers the best observation conditions since it is at the minimum distance from Earth, remaining then visible all night.
Jupiter, in particular, reaches opposition approximately every 13 monthsbecause the Earth completes one orbit around the Sun in one year, while Jupiter takes almost 12 Earth years: therefore it is necessary to wait more than a year for the two planets to find themselves aligned again on the same side of the Sun.
Technically, however, this opposition was expected at 9.34 Italian time, when it was already broad daylight here. For this reason, we will have to wait until tonight to admire the show (a few hours difference will not change the view with the naked eye).
Jupiter is still located in the constellation dei Twinswhere it shines together with the stars Castor And Polluxand will be visible already after sunset. But for better observation we always recommend a completely dark sky, possibly far from sources of light pollution (on the map the sky of January 10, 2026 at approximately 8.00 pm).
Don’t miss it!
Sources: UAI / Space.com
