As we continue to celebrate over the Thanksgiving holiday weekend, there is a reason to look up and explore the night sky. On Friday night (November 24th, 2023), you will find Jupiter adjacent to the nearly full Moon. With binoculars, you should be able to capture both the Moon and Jupiter in the same field of view.

Look to the east after sunset to find the pair. They’ll remain in close proximity to one another as they continue to move across the sky.

After viewing Jupiter, you can participate in NASA's "Send Your Name to Jupiter" campaign. All submitted names will be inscribed onto a microchip that will travel 1.8 billion miles to Europa, one of Jupiter’s moons. The spacecraft carrying the microchip will launch from Kennedy Space Center in October of 2024.

The deadline to submit your name is December 31st, 2023. You can send in your name here at no cost.

The campaign is a part of the much bigger Europa Clipper mission. The goals of the mission are to determine if there are places on the icy moon that could support life and to investigate the potential for habitable worlds beyond Earth.