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Saturn will reach its yearly opposition today, when it appears at its brightest and most significant all year and ends up being the only world noticeable all night.
The brief, amazing duration for skywatchers has more to do with where Earth remains in its orbit than with Saturn‘s journey around the sun. Opposition takes place when Earth moves straight in between a world and the sun, putting the 2 worlds on the exact same side of the planetary system. For observers in the world, that indicates Saturn appears opposite the sun in the sky, similar to a moon (for this reason the name “opposition”. Saturn Increases in the east around sundown, 100% brightened, before reaching its greatest point around midnight and lastly sinking towards the western horizon around daybreak.
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