Seeing Jupiter.—Jupiter, the largest planet which revolves round our Sun, is fifth in distance from him. He is not as bright as Venus, but he is brighter than any of the fixed stars, and by his brightness and silvery color he is quite easy to recognize.

This great planet seems not to have cooled down yet into a nice world like our own Earth or someone’s else Mars, but rather he is a ball surrounded by clouds of hot vapor. Still he is not hot enough to give out any light himself, but like the rest of the planets he shines by the reflected light of the Sun. [Fig. 56] is a view of Jupiter as seen through a telescope; one of the moons, and its shadow on the planet, is shown.

Jupiter is crossed with several bands and he has nine moons to light up his great surface on a dark night, but neither his belts nor his moons can be seen without a glass.

Jupiter is 483 millions of miles from the Sun.

Fig. 57.—Saturn.

Seeing Saturn.—It is not quite as easy to single out Saturn with the naked eye, for his light is just about as bright as Capella in the constellation of Auriga, or any of the other first magnitude stars.

This disadvantage is offset by the fact that when he rises at sunset he can be seen during the whole night, so that you will not only have plenty of time in which to find him, but to observe him as well. Again, Saturn may be seen any clear night during the winter months until the year 1920.