What Is That Bright ‘Star’ In The East At Night?

ByJamie Carter,

Senior Contributor.

What is the bright white star in the east right now? Whenever you look at the night sky right now, you’ll likely see a brilliant star that you can’t help noticing outshining everything around it. You’re almost certainly looking at a planet.

In mid-November 2025, there are two overwhelmingly likely answers to questions about a bright star in the sky tonight — Jupiter in the evening and Venus before dawn. Here’s how to identify which is which, why they’re so bright, and what else that bright star could be.

Jupiter is now rising in the east after dark, about 8:30 p.m.local time in North America. It rises higher through the night and is difficult not to notice in a clear sky because it’s so bright. Now shining at magnitude -2.2, it’s especially brilliant because Earth is heading towards it and the sun. It will get perfectly between them on Jan. 10, 2026, a moment called opposition. Around opposition, we see 100% of Jupiter’s disk from Earth. It’s also the closest to Earth it ever gets, and, just to further boost its visibility, it rises in the east at sunset and sets in the west at sunrise. It’s going to be hard to miss as we get closer to the end of 2026, when it will dominate the night sky as the “Christmas Star.”