Exciting news astronomy fans : you could see one of the magnanimous asteroids in the Solar System right now with the defenseless eye .

Vesta , which is also sometimes classed as a protoplanet , is the second - turgid object in the asteroid belt between Mars and Jupiter after the gnome planet Ceres .

once in a while , it ’s bright enough to see with the naked center , including decent now , as it just made its closest straits to Earth in two decades . Its previous tightlipped strait come in May 2007 , when it was a piffling bit further aside .

As notice bySky and Telescope , the objective reached its penny-pinching point to Earth – known as opposition – on June 19 , a distance of 170.6 million kilometer ( 106 million international nautical mile ) . However , it should remain visible to the naked eye until July 16 .

Vesta can be spotted near the configuration of Sagittarius in the southeast sky when viewed from the Northern Hemisphere . From the Southern Hemisphere , it appear higher in the sky . Its itinerary will take it close to Saturn , so if you could pick out the gas giant , then you should see the asteroid just to the east of the planet . Astronomy Nowhas a good scout on how to see it .

While you could see Vesta with the naked eye , you ’ll get the near persuasion with binoculars and a telescope . It ’s quite impressive that it ’s visible at all to the bare eye though , considering its distance and sizing – about 570 kilometers ( 355 miles ) across .

In fact , Vesta really shine quite a lot of incoming sunlight – about 43 percentage compared to the Moon at 12 percent – and astronomers are n’t quite sure why . It might be that the asteroid is protected by a charismatic arena , keeping its surface pristine .

We did in reality have a spacecraft go and chew the fat Vesta , NASA ’s Dawn investigation , which arrived in July 2011 and leave in September 2012 . That ballistic capsule has now beenorbiting Ceressince March 2015 , where it ’ll remain for the rest of its day .

But thanks to this close flip , you do n’t involve a fancy spacecraft to see Vesta for yourself . And if giant asteroid are n’t your thing , then ensure you give Saturn a glance . It ’ll be spend a penny its closest crack of Earth tomorrow on June 27 , so you should also get a good view of the surround major planet .