All month – Saturn leads Jupiter into the new day.The pair will appear a bit lower in the sky each night. All month – Mars and Venus draw nearer each evening in the western sky following sunset.The situation is reversed in the Southern Hemisphere, where it’s the shortest day of the year, during the cool months of winter. For the north, it’s the longest day of the year, as the Sun traces its highest, longest path across the sky. June 21 – The crescent Moon makes a lovely grouping with Venus and Mars tonight.Look for the Red Planet in the west after dark, where binoculars or a small telescope will reveal a backdrop of glittering stars in this open star cluster. June 1-2 – Mars is in the Beehive Cluster (M44).I’m Preston Dyches from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, and that’s What’s Up for this month. Stay up to date with all of NASA’s missions to explore the solar system and beyond at. Here are the phases of the Moon for June. He was also the first to calculate the tilt of Earth’s axis – which, after all, is what’s responsible for the solstices and for the seasons themselves. By comparing the shadows with the separation of the two cities, Eratosthenes deduced that Earth was about 40,000 kilometers in circumference, which is the actual value. One cast no shadow at all and the other cast a significant shadow. A scholar named Eratosthenes noted the difference in the length of the shadows cast by poles placed in the ground in two cities, 800 kilometers apart, at noon on the day of the solstice. It helped the Ancient Greeks, 2,200 years ago, to understand the size of our planet with remarkable accuracy. The June summer solstice has another interesting claim to fame. The situation is reversed for those living south of the equator, where it’s the shortest day of the year, during the cool months of winter.

More hours of sunlight, in addition to the more direct angle of the Sun overhead, translate into warmer summertime temperatures for our planet’s summer hemisphere. June 21 is the Summer Solstice for the Northern Hemisphere, and Winter Solstice in the Southern Hemisphere. Credit: NASA/JPL-Caltechįacing southward early on June evenings, you’ll notice two particularly bright stars high in the sky. This sky chart for June 14 shows Jupiter with the Moon in the east before sunrise, with Saturn farther up the sky toward the south. And you’ll find Jupiter rising with the crescent Moon on June 14th. Early risers will find them on the eastern side of the sky before sun-up all month long. Turning to the morning sky, Saturn and Jupiter rise before dawn, with the Ringed Planet rising around midnight and leading brilliant Jupiter into the new day. And on the 20th through the 22nd the crescent Moon passes through, making an especially lovely grouping at dusk on June 21st. Nearby is brilliant, blue-white star Regulus – the heart of Leo, the lion. You can watch Mars and Venus draw closer together throughout the month in the western sky following sunset. Sky chart with the crescent Moon near Mars and Venus in the evening sky on June 21.

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