Tonight, go outside and look up... April 7, 2017 -- special edition

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Greatest Show on Earth. Free. And visible in the sky above you all night long.

It's Jupiter's closest pass to Earth. Go outside after local sunset and observe an incredibly bright Jupiter -- even before it gets dark. But don't just settle for that. You'll miss things you can see only when it's this close. Like its biggest moons, without a telescope.
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If it's cloudy, watch the live stream from a series of telescopes (link below). Either way, peek at the live action online, anyway. You can easily watch the Jovian cloud bands in those images from all those telescopes.

The online live stream became active at 1:30 pm EDT today.

But go outside.

In addition to your early post-sunset peek, go out again after it's good and dark.

Then you may be able to see Jupiter's four largest moons with your naked eyes. (We now know of 67 moons -- so far -- that orbit Jupiter. Galileo found those first four).

Binoculars will help you see them: there's Io (the one with the yellow sulphur coating from its frequent volcanic eruptions); and the three big ones with subsurface liquid water, Ganymede, Callisto, and Europa. Ganymede has a magnetic field -- important for protecting itself from solar radiation. (Mars lost its oceans because it lost its magnetic field.) And we must mention why you want to say you saw Europa -- it's the one with a GIANT ocean of liquid water beneath its ice crust. In fact, there's THREE TIMES as much water in Europa's ocean as the total amount of all the liquid water on Earth. Making it a PRIME candidate for life. (Anyone for ice fishing? Oh, can't. Austerity. No money for space exploration. We need all our money for war.)

If you remember where you see all those moons tonight, look again tomorrow night and you'll see they've all changed positions as they orbit the giant planet.

If you have better lenses? Even a rudimentary telescope will let you see the cloud bands and famous red spot -- the latter when the planet's orbit brings it around into view. The Great Red Spot is a centuries-old superstorm way bigger that the size of Earth. Specifically, about 12,400 miles (20,000 kilometers) long and 7,500 miles (12,000 km) wide, about two to three times larger than Earth. Winds at its oval edges can reach up to 425 mph (680 km/h).

See it tonight. Greatest Show on Earth. Free. And visible in the sky above you all night long.

Added bonus? You don't need to worry about being locked-up for watching it -- like the all-powerful church did to Galileo when he found those first four moons and reported that they orbited their planet. So, by going outside and looking up, you're being conspiratorial and you didn't even know it. Heretical, even.
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Live telescope feed, trained on Jupiter, now through tonight (decent music, too):

"Jupiter at Opposition"

Under that title at the top, click the smaller print:

"Click here to watch the show"
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http://main.slooh.com/event/jupiter-at-opposition-2017/


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We'll be along soon with more music news than you can shake a mic stand at. Meantime, look up.


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The Guide brings you frequent editions covering MUSIC NEWS and ticket alerts, published separately, and always available right here on the Guide's Blogspot site.

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More soon, as always.
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♪ The ACOUSTIC AMERICANA MUSIC GUIDE endeavors to bring you NEWS and views of interest to artists everywhere, more specifically to musicians and the creative community and music makers and fans of acoustic and Folk-Americana music, both traditional and innovative forms. From the deepest roots to today’s acoustic renaissance, that’s our beat. We provide a wealth of resources, including a HUGE catalog of acoustic-friendly venues, and schedules and inside info on FESTIVALS and select performances in Southern California in venues monumentally large and intimately small and cozy. We cover workshops and other events for artists and folks in the music industry, and all kinds o’ things in the world of acoustic and Americana and accessible classical music. From washtub bass to musical spoons to oboe to viola to banjo to squeezebox, from Djangostyle to new-fangled-old-time string band music, from sweet Cajun fiddle to bluegrass and pre-bluegrass Appalachian mountain music to all the roots of the blues and where the music is headed now.
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The Acoustic Americana Music Guide. Thanks for sittin' a spell.
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