It’s not often that the man-made dramatically outshines the natural.

But that will be the case — weather permitting — when a satellite passing over Hawaii this evening suddenly catches the rays of the sun.

The Iridium 8 communications satellite, 620 miles high, will climb into Hawaii’s skies just after 8:20 p.m. but will remain invisible as it slices through the handle of the Big Dipper and above the star Arcturus, or Hokule‘a.

However, things will change dramatically as the satellite approaches Jupiter, nestled in the arms of the constellation Virgo, halfway up the sky in the east-southeast.

Between 8:24 and 8:25 p.m., the satellite’s highly reflective antennas will bounce light from the sun, already set, down to Oahu.

This will be extremely bright — what astronomers quantify as magnitude minus-8. By comparison, Jupiter is shining at magnitude minus-2.5, far brighter than nearby Spica, or Hikianalia, the brightest star in Virgo at magnitude plus-1.

On this brightness scale, a whole number difference translates to a change by a factor of about 2.5. That means that Iridium 8 when it flares will appear 158 times brighter than Jupiter.

It could well look like something near Jupiter is exploding. The flare will fade quickly as the satellite moves out of angular position.