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A handful of deep golden fire, even slightly orange, rises every day in the twilight and spends the night crossing the southern sky. This imposing mbad of heavenly flame and fame is none other than the most fascinating of all the other worlds of the Earth, the Mars planet, which comes closest to Earth in fifteen years in just two weeks.
Mars is not yet or brighter, and it gets up even more than an hour after sunset. But by the end of July, the planet, rising at sunset and visible all night, is getting closer to Earth at any time between 2003 and 2035 – and with the current Martian dust storm, shines maybe the brightest see it in our lives. The bad news is that this dust storm is currently hiding the view through the telescopes of the Martian polar ice caps and the dark surface features. But we hope that the dust will begin to detach itself from the Martian atmosphere and allow clearer views of the local Martian viewing shows that I will give you at the end of this column.
This Friday is the 49th anniversary of the first inhabited lunar landing and the 42nd anniversary of the first successful unmanned landing on Mars. It is also the evening when the moon has several arm lengths above bright Jupiter.
On Sundays, between 9:30 pm and 10 pm, there is an astonishing expanse of brilliant astronomical objects that start on the left. from Venus lying to the west all the way from Mars rising to the southeast. The objects from left to right after Venus are the brilliant Spica star, the very bright planet Jupiter, the moon (well above the shining star Antares), brilliant Saturn and, last but not least, Mars – now twice as bright as Jupiter
Tuesday, July 24, the moon only measures the width of your thumb at arm's length above Saturn
In the night of July 26 to 27, Mars is at Orbital arrangement called "opposition" – opposite of the sun in the sky, so visible all night long. This Friday night (July 27), Mars shines in the lower right of the full moon that rises. Saturday, July 28, before sunrise, Mars shines straight under the full moon. This moon, by the way, is the farthest from the year in space – 252,300 miles from Earth – and long overshadowed in Asia and Europe.
Opposition is typically when a planet is aligned with the Earth. and the sun and the distance between the Earth and the planet are at a minimum. But the resolutely elliptical orbit (considerably more oval than round) of Mars sometimes places it at its closest to us a few days before or after the opposition. This happens this year, with Mars and Earth closest together about four days after the opposition. Mars is at its closest to us in the early hours of July 31 – 35,785,000 miles from Earth. It is then that the next of our columns will appear in The Press, so our discussion of Mars at its biggest and brightest will continue here.
Two Tuesdays today, the day Mars is closest to Earth, there is a large multimedia. , interactive show and observation on Mars at Rowan University in Glbadboro. The show takes place from 8h to 23h. That day. For more information, check out www.rowan.edu/planetarium. [1966500]. It is not too early to prepare another event, a dual function blockbuster of a show. local astronomy. Starting at 7:30 pm On August 12, weather permitting, the South Jersey Astronomy Club will hold a Skywatch at the Belleplain State Forest, both for Mars and the summit of the Perseid meteor shower. See www.sjac.us for details.
Fred Schaaf is a local author and astronomer. He can be contacted at [email protected]
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