APOD: July 27, 2024 – Saturn at the edge of the Moon

Explanation:

Saturn is now rising before midnight in planet Earth’s sky. On July 24, the naked-eye planet was in close, near-sky conjunction with a waning gibbous Moon. But from some locations on planet Earth, the ringed gas giant was occulted, disappearing behind the Moon for about an hour in the skies over parts of Asia and Africa. Because the Moon and bright planets wander the sky near the ecliptic plane, such occultation events are not uncommon, but they can be dramatic. In this telescopic view from Nanjing, Jiangsu, China, Saturn is captured moments before it disappears behind the lunar disk. The snapshot gives the illusion that Saturn is hanging just above Glushko Crater, a young crater 27 miles (43 kilometers) across, near the Moon’s western edge. Of course, the Moon is 400,000 kilometers away, compared to Saturn’s distance of 1.4 billion kilometers.