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Juno Probe To Get First Up-Close Look At Jupiter On Saturday (space.com)

NASA's Juno spacecraft will get its first up-close view at Jupiter this Saturday. Space.com reports: "At 8:51 a.m. EDT (1251 GMT) on Saturday (Aug. 27), Juno will zoom within 2,600 miles (4,000 kilometers) of Jupiter's cloud tops -- closer than the probe is scheduled to come during its entire mission, NASA officials said. And Juno will have all of its science instruments during Saturday's flyby. This was not the case during the spacecraft's only previous close approach to Jupiter, which occurred July 4 when Juno arrived in orbit around the giant planet. During Saturday's close pass, all eight of Juno's science instruments will be collecting data, and the probe's visible-light imager, known as JunoCam, will take close-up photos." You can also look forward to Venus-Jupiter Conjunction 2016, an event happening on August 27 where Venus and Jupiter's respective orbits will bring the two planets the closest that they'll be to each other until 2065. The two planets will be positioned roughly five degrees above the Western horizon on August 27.

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  1. Thanks again Slashdot editors by frovingslosh · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    The two planets will be positioned roughly five degrees above the Western horizon on August 27.

    What an amazing thing! The two planets will be five degrees above the western horizon the entire 24 hours, or at least all night. Us uneducated people would think that it was necessary to give a time when the planets would be in this exact position, but apparently that isn't necessary and just the date is enough.

    Of course, my question is why was "Western" capitalized?

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