Tonight’s gibbous moon appears low in the southern sky near Antares, the brightest star in the zodiacal constellation Scorpius.

Scorpius is a group of stars that depict a giant scorpion. It is one of the southernmost constellations in the zodiac.

Take a look tonight for Antares almost four degrees distant from the moon. The two are a pair. Use the moon as a guide to see this bright red star.

Antares is one of the largest stars in the summer night sky. It parallels in size the bright red star Betelgeuse in the winter constellation Orion.

Antares is so big that if we substituted our sun with Antares, our earth and the planet Mars would be inside the star. The star is 550 light years away.

The Earth’s distance from the sun is 93 million miles. Compare that to the radius of Antares at 293 million miles.