Tonight – June 3, 2017 – the waning gibbous moon passes 2o north of the planet Jupiter, the brightest starlike object in the evening sky. A bright star nearby, Spica in the constellation Virgo, will come into view to the east of the moon and Jupiter as night deepens. There’s a “string of pearls” to the south of the red spot — eight white ovals that are thousands of miles across. Spica is a distant star, or actually two stars in one. The planet is just a couple of degrees from the Moon.
Two of Jupiter's moons, S/2003 J 18 and S/2011 J 2 are recovered, and a small 1.5-kilometer outer moon (S/2016 J 1) is discovered, the first moon discovered around a major planet in 6 years.