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Uranus is going to look really, really cool Thursday night

Make all the cheeky remarks you want, but the blue ice giant is getting ready for its closeup.

Gael Cooper
CNET editor Gael Fashingbauer Cooper, a journalist and pop-culture junkie, is co-author of "Whatever Happened to Pudding Pops? The Lost Toys, Tastes and Trends of the '70s and '80s," as well as "The Totally Sweet '90s." She's been a journalist since 1989, working at Mpls.St.Paul Magazine, Twin Cities Sidewalk, the Minneapolis Star Tribune, and NBC News Digital. She's Gen X in birthdate, word and deed. If Marathon candy bars ever come back, she'll be first in line.
Expertise Breaking news, entertainment, lifestyle, travel, food, shopping and deals, product reviews, money and finance, video games, pets, history, books, technology history, generational studies. Credentials
  • Co-author of two Gen X pop-culture encyclopedia for Penguin Books. Won "Headline Writer of the Year"​ award for 2017, 2014 and 2013 from the American Copy Editors Society. Won first place in headline writing from the 2013 Society for Features Journalism.
Gael Cooper
uranus

Uranus, shown here in an image taken by Voyager 2 in 1986, will be visible this week.

NASA/JPL-Caltech

Uranus has heard all your cheeky comments. But if you want to get a good look at the icy blue seventh planet from the sun that's the butt of so many jokes, Thursday night is your chance. Bring your own bad puns.

The planet (named for Ouranos, the Greek god of the sky) will reach opposition on Oct. 19, meaning it's directly opposite the sun, bringing it closer to Earth (and brighter) than at any other time of the year

"It's visible all night long and its blue-green color is unmistakable," says Jane Houston Jones of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory. "It may be bright enough to see with your naked eye -- and for sure in binoculars."

Not sure how to find it? "Start looking in the southeast sky within the constellation Pisces, the fish," National Geographic magazine advises. "Scan the constellation carefully, and look for a tiny blue-green disk to pop out against the background of fainter stars." (SkyView is a good app to help you out if you don't know where to get started finding Pisces.)

"The telescopic view should be especially good this month because Uranus appears so high," Astronomy magazine reports. "From mid-northern latitudes on the night of opposition, the planet lies 60° above the southern horizon at its peak around 1 a.m. local daylight time. This is the highest it has appeared at opposition since February 1963."