Mars and Jupiter conjunction, November 2026: what time to look in your city

The Mars and Jupiter conjunction comes before dawn on 15 and 16 November 2026, when the two planets pass 1.2 degrees apart, a bit more than the width of your little finger held at arm's length. Look south-east to south in the two hours before sunrise from the US and the UK, high in the east from India, and low in the north-east from Australia. You don't need a telescope. The bright cream point is Jupiter, and the fainter orange one beside it is Mars.

They only look close. Mars is 196 million km away on those mornings and Jupiter 788 million, so Jupiter's light is 44 minutes old by the time it reaches you, and Mars's only 11. The far one still outshines the near one, which is your first clue to which is which.

From southern India there's a bonus two weeks earlier, when the Moon covers Jupiter for half an hour or more on the night of 2 to 3 November.

When is the Mars and Jupiter conjunction in 2026?

Some sources say 15 November and some say 16, and both are right. A conjunction is when two planets share the same right ascension (the sky's version of longitude), or in some almanacs the same ecliptic longitude. By right ascension it happens at 02:42 UTC on 15 November (Star Walk). The pair is closest a day later, at 02:04 UTC on 16 November, 1.19 degrees apart by JPL's numbers (Forecast Bar).

Over the Americas both moments come on the evening before, while the pair is still below the horizon, and in India and Australia they come after sunrise. Europe is luckier. At 2:04 AM GMT on Monday 16 November, the closest moment, the pair is 28 degrees up in the east-south-east from London.

To the eye, the mornings of the 15th and 16th look the same from the Americas and Europe, 1.2 degrees apart on both. In India and Australia pick the 16th (1.2 degrees, against 1.3 the morning before).

A cloudy 16th isn't the end of it: the gap stays under 1.5 degrees every morning from 14 to 18 November.

I worked these numbers out with the sky engine inside Orbit, the Mac app I make, on 20 October 2026, and checked them against NASA JPL's Horizons. Over New York, Orbit and JPL agree on both planets to within 0.04 degrees. Planet numbers in this post come from one or the other unless I name another source.

Morning	Apart	Where Mars sits
Sun 8 Nov	3.1°	Above Jupiter
Mon 9 Nov	2.8°	Above
Tue 10 Nov	2.4°	Above
Wed 11 Nov	2.1°	Above
Thu 12 Nov	1.8°	Above
Fri 13 Nov	1.6°	Above
Sat 14 Nov	1.4°	Above
Sun 15 Nov	1.2°	Upper left
Mon 16 Nov	1.2°	Upper left
Tue 17 Nov	1.3°	Upper left
Wed 18 Nov	1.4°	Left
Thu 19 Nov	1.7°	Left
Fri 20 Nov	1.9°	Left
Sat 21 Nov	2.2°	Left
Sun 22 Nov	2.5°	Left
Mon 23 Nov	2.9°	Left
Tue 24 Nov	3.2°	Left

Mars passes north of Jupiter (EarthSky), so from New York it comes in from above and leaves to the left. On the 15th and 16th the Moon stays out of the way, a waxing crescent that sets an hour or more before the pair rises (in the evening, or just after midnight in Sydney).

If you're up before dawn on the 17th or 18th anyway, the Leonid meteor shower peaks those nights, and its meteors seem to fly from a point in Leo 8 to 9 degrees from the pair. The Leonid guide has the hours.

What time to see Mars and Jupiter in the US, UK, India and Australia

The pair rises around midnight and climbs all night, so look in the last two hours before sunrise, when it's high and the sky is still dark. From New York it's already 51 degrees up in the south-east by 4 AM, and Jupiter peaks a few minutes after 6 AM, 63 degrees up due south, as the sky turns blue. It hangs on into the twilight a while after Mars has faded.

City	Pair rises	Sky starts to brighten	An hour before sunrise	Sunrise
New York	11:18 PM (Sun 15)	5:09 AM	62 to 63° up, south-south-east	6:44 AM
Los Angeles	11:25 PM (Sun 15)	5:00 AM	68 to 69° up, south-south-east	6:27 AM
London	10:59 PM (Sun 15)	5:23 AM	52 to 53° up, south	7:20 AM
Bengaluru	12:19 AM	5:05 AM	72° up, east	6:19 AM
Sydney	1:45 AM	4:07 AM	30 to 31° up, north-east	5:43 AM

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A closer look

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Orbit's drawing of the night sky facing east from New York, over dark hills marked NE, E and SE. High on the right a small red dot labelled Mars sits beside a larger cream dot labelled Jupiter, with a white star labelled Regulus below them on thin constellation lines. Low on the left is an orange star labelled Arcturus.

From Bengaluru, where I live, this is a lie-down-on-the-terrace event. The pair is 72 degrees up in the east an hour before sunrise, and by sunrise Jupiter has climbed to 86 degrees, nearly straight overhead. Mumbai gets 73 to 74 degrees up in the east-south-east and Delhi 71 to 72 in the south-east an hour before sunrise, by JPL's numbers.

The Moon hides Jupiter from southern India on 3 November

The Moon slides right over Jupiter as seen from Bengaluru, Chennai and Kochi. Universe Magazine lists southern India among the places that will see it. From Bengaluru it happens 20 to 27 degrees up in the east, well after midnight, so it's the night of Monday 2 November you want, not Tuesday's.

City	Jupiter disappears	Jupiter comes back
Bengaluru	2:31 AM	3:02 AM
Chennai	2:32 AM	3:05 AM
Kochi	2:23 AM	3:11 AM

It's a waning Moon, so Jupiter vanishes at the bright edge and comes back at the dark one. From Hyderabad and Mumbai the Moon misses by a hair; from Kolkata and Delhi it slides past a quarter to half a Moon-width away. If you live elsewhere in the south, look up the times for your own town before you set an alarm.

Orbit's own engine puts Jupiter right on the Moon's edge, too close to call, so these times come from JPL's positions, not Orbit's.

What is the bright star next to Jupiter?

In mid-November it's Mars, which is a planet. Stars twinkle; planets mostly hold steady (Royal Museums Greenwich). Jupiter is the bright one, by a lot: magnitude −2.1 on 16 November against Mars's +0.7. Lower numbers mean brighter, and that gap makes Jupiter about 13 times brighter than Mars. It beats Sirius too, the brightest star in the night sky, at −1.44 (EarthSky).

Mars is the fainter point with the orange tint, and the orange is rust: iron in its rocks and dust has oxidised (NASA).

The white star 4 to 5 degrees from both is Regulus, the brightest star in Leo (Sky at Night) and the point at the bottom of Leo's backward question mark (EarthSky). Mars keeps moving, so by 22 November the three make a neat triangle.

One more light, far brighter than all three and low in the east or south-east an hour before sunrise, is Venus at magnitude −4.8. It has a guide of its own: the bright star in the east before sunrise.

Why do Mars and Jupiter look so close when they're far apart?

The planets go round the Sun in nearly the same flat plane, so from Earth they all travel along the same narrow band of sky, and now and then a near one overtakes a far one along our line of sight. Mars is doing the overtaking. This month it moves 0.45 degrees a day against the stars, nearly a full Moon's width, while Jupiter manages 0.08.

Jupiter wins on brightness mostly because it's huge: 20 times wider than Mars, going by NASA's Jupiter and Mars fact pages, which more than makes up for being four times farther away.

Mars catches Jupiter about every two years, and the gap is different every time. In August 2024 it was only a third of a degree (NASA). By my reading of JPL's positions, the next meeting under 2 degrees comes around 20 July 2029, in the evening sky.

Can you see Jupiter's moons with binoculars?

Point binoculars at the pair and both planets fit in one view, since most binoculars show 6 or 7 degrees of sky (Astronomy). Brace them on a wall or a car roof and you should catch one or two of Jupiter's moons as tiny points beside it; NASA's Night Sky Network says most binoculars show at least that many.

On the American morning of 16 November, Ganymede and Europa sit farthest out, on the same side, so Ganymede is the likeliest. On the Indian and Australian morning all four huddle within about 3 arcminutes of Jupiter, a tenth of the Moon's width, which is a hard ask for binoculars. Sky & Telescope's moon tool draws the layout for any date.

Mars and Jupiter from Sydney and the southern hemisphere

From Sydney the pair rises at 1:45 AM and is only 30 degrees up in the north-east an hour before sunrise. It's flipped, too, by northern standards: Jupiter sits above Mars.

⊕ Inspect the image

A closer look

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Orbit's drawing of the pre-dawn sky facing north from Sydney, turning blue towards hills marked NW, N and NE. On the right, above the NE mark, a cream dot labelled Jupiter sits just above a small red dot labelled Mars, with Regulus labelled to their right. Labelled stars include Rigel, Betelgeuse, Aldebaran, Capella, Procyon and Pollux, with Rigel drawn above Betelgeuse.

Orbit's city menu shows you Sydney's view from home: at 11 PM in India on Sunday 15 November, switch the city to Sydney and Facing to North, with labels on, and you get the view in the picture above, over an hour before the pair rises over Bengaluru.

When the Moon joins Mars and Jupiter in November

The Moon visits the pair at both ends of the month. Before dawn on 2 November, seen from New York at 5 AM, the Moon, a little under half lit, sits 2 degrees from Mars. By the next morning it has dropped below the pair, which matches Sky at Night's forecast.

On the morning of 30 November a fatter Moon, 60% lit, sits 1.3 degrees from Jupiter at 2 AM from New York and 1.9 degrees by 5 AM, with Mars 5 to 6 degrees away.

Mars and Jupiter on your Mac's desktop

Orbit puts the real sky over your city on the Mac's desktop, Mars and Jupiter included, worked out on the Mac itself.

Turn on Labels on the Sky (it's off by default) and it names Mars, Jupiter and Regulus, as in both pictures above. The briefing card under the Moon in the menu bar lists the planets too: from New York on 16 November its Planets tile starts with Mars S 64° and Jupiter S 63°, where each stands highest.

It shows the sky as it is right now (there's no date slider), and its alerts are for the space station, launches and aurora, not conjunctions. From New York the default south-facing view misses the pair, or catches it only at the very top edge, so set Facing to East and look around 4 AM, as in the first picture.

Orbit is $6.99 once (₹699 in India), no subscription, for macOS 15 or later on Apple silicon and Intel. The Mac page has screenshots.