The November supermoon is full at 9:53 a.m. Eastern on Tuesday, Nov. 24, according to the U.S. Naval Observatory. Nine days earlier, Mars and Jupiter will sit about 1.2 degrees apart in the predawn sky. Space.com calls the pairing likely to be the year’s planetary highlight.
Neither event needs a telescope. Both can be seen from a city. The trick is knowing the night, the hour and the patch of sky. The supermoon is an evening event, while the planets belong to the hours before sunrise.
Some guides give different dates for the Mars-Jupiter pairing. So we ran the positions ourselves through NASA’s JPL Horizons system, JPL’s public ephemeris service. The results below come from those calculations unless we say otherwise.
Why the Nov. 24 full Moon counts as a supermoon
NASA lists Nov. 24 at 14:54 UTC and Dec. 24 at 01:28 UTC as the two remaining supermoons of 2026. The term is not official, NASA notes. It usually means a full Moon within at least 90 percent of perigee. That is the closest point in the Moon’s oval orbit.
By our Horizons figures, the Moon will be about 224,160 miles from Earth’s center at the moment it turns full. The Moon reaches perigee about 30 hours later, on the afternoon of Nov. 25 Eastern time, at about 223,280 miles.
That makes this full Moon about 11 percent closer than the Moon was at apogee, its farthest point, on Nov. 13. It is also about 5,000 miles closer than October’s Hunter’s Moon on Oct. 26.
What does that look like? At its closest, a full Moon can look up to 14 percent bigger than the year’s faintest full Moon, NASA says. It can also look 30 percent brighter.
Still, the agency adds that “it might be hard to detect a supermoon visually.” The effect shows up more in the tides, which can run higher than usual around a supermoon.
When to watch the supermoon rise in the US
The exact moment of full Moon falls in daylight for most of the country, so the better show is moonrise. A full Moon rises around sunset. Space.com suggests watching at moonrise for the “moon illusion,” which makes a low Moon look larger.
In Washington, D.C., the Moon rises at about 4:36 p.m. on Nov. 24, by our calculation, roughly 13 minutes before sunset. On Nov. 23 it rises earlier, at about 3:48 p.m., while the sky is still bright. Rise times vary with your location, so check a local almanac for your city.
Look low in the northeast. The Moon will sit in Taurus, near the Pleiades star cluster, says the app maker Star Walk. The bright Moon will drown out many of the cluster’s fainter stars, so binoculars help.
If you miss it, the next one is better. December’s full Moon on Dec. 24 at 01:28 UTC, which is 8:28 p.m. Eastern on Dec. 23, comes about 2,500 miles closer still. It will be the closest full Moon of 2026, according to ABC7, which cited EarthSky. Space.com says it will be closer than any full Moon since 2018.
Mars and Jupiter meet before dawn on Nov. 15 and 16
The planetary pairing needs an earlier alarm. Mars and Jupiter rise together around midnight and climb high by morning, Star Walk says. In Washington, Jupiter rises at about 11:33 p.m. on Nov. 15, by our calculation. In Los Angeles it rises at about 11:25 p.m. local time.
The best time to look is in the hour before dawn. By about 6:20 a.m. on Nov. 16, Jupiter stands due south in Washington, about 65 degrees above the horizon. Sunrise there comes at about 6:53 a.m.
The guides do not agree on the date. Space.com puts the closest approach before sunrise on Nov. 15, with the planets “just 1 degree apart.” Star Walk lists Nov. 16 and a gap of 1 degree 11 minutes.
Our Horizons run explains the split. The two planets are closest, at about 1.19 degrees, between 7 p.m. Eastern on Nov. 15 and 1 a.m. Eastern on Nov. 16. That is while they are still below the horizon or low in the east for most of the US. So the mornings of Nov. 15 and Nov. 16 offer almost the same view, separated by about 1.2 to 1.25 degrees.
For a few mornings on either side, the pair still looks tight to the naked eye, Space.com says. Both planets sit in Leo, near its brightest star, Regulus, according to Star Walk.
How to tell Mars from Jupiter in the morning sky
Jupiter is the brighter of the two by a wide margin. Horizons puts it at magnitude -2.1 in mid-November, while Mars is around magnitude 0.7. On the astronomer’s scale, lower numbers mean brighter objects. Jupiter will be the brighter point, and Mars the dimmer, reddish one beside it.
The closeness is only an effect of perspective. On Nov. 16 Mars is about 121 million miles from Earth, while Jupiter is about 489 million miles away, our calculation shows. Jupiter is roughly four times farther away. It still outshines Mars because it is far larger.
Star Walk says the pair can be seen with the naked eye or through binoculars. At about 1.2 degrees apart, they fit in one binocular view.
Mars has been in the science news this fall, too. Last week, a NASA-funded team said a Martian meteorite found in the Sahara formed at least 4.1 billion years ago.
More November dates for the Moon and planets
The Moon visits the same patch of sky twice this month. Before dawn on Election Day, Nov. 3, a waning Moon sits about 7 degrees from Jupiter, with Mars farther off, by our calculation. Star Walk says the Moon passes closest to Jupiter on Nov. 2, about half a degree away, though by our calculation that comes before the pair rises over the US.
On the morning of Nov. 30, the Moon returns and sits about 2 degrees from Jupiter in US predawn skies, by our Horizons figures. Star Walk lists the same date for the Moon near Jupiter, Regulus and Mars.
Meteor watchers have the Leonids. The American Meteor Society lists the peak for the night of Nov. 16-17, ABC7 reported, while Space.com and Star Walk give Nov. 17-18. Star Walk expects up to 15 meteors an hour at the peak.
That night, a first quarter Moon will set around 11 p.m., it says, leaving darker skies later. The Naval Observatory times that first quarter Moon at 11:48 UTC on Nov. 17.
NASA’s own Moon program is also building toward a return. Its next crewed flight, Artemis III, has been reworked into an Earth-orbit test rather than a landing.
The next date to circle is Dec. 23. That evening’s full Moon will be the closest of the year. From Dec. 26 to 28, Star Walk says, the Moon will form an arc with Jupiter, Regulus and Mars.
