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You probably have already seen this month, perhaps without realizing what it was – the bright "star" orange in the southeast sky every night. It's Mars, our neighbor and fourth of the sun, in its closest approach to Earth since 2003.
It rises just after sunset in the constellation Capricorn. With a clear sky, it is visible all night from its starting point in the south-east to where it sets in the south-west. This month, Mars is higher in the sky around midnight local time.
You can see it by going outward around the sunset. With the glow of twilight, it will be a good time to photograph the planet. A crescent moon will set in the west, becoming progressively bigger and closer to Mars as the nights pass. On July 30, Mars and the Moon will be close enough to photograph together in the southeast sky.
The exact time of Mars' closest approach to Earth is around 4 am on July 31. It was the year of March to shine, when she was closer to Earth than she had been in 60,000 years ago.
A few days earlier, on July 27, Mars will have reached the opposition, when a planet is exactly sun in our sky. The time of opposition is the brightest that this planet will be all year.
With these two events combined, Mars will be bigger and brighter in the sky from July 27 to July 30.
The two events – closest approach and opposition – are not independent. They occur at about the same time each year. Imagine Earth and Mars right next to each other on the same side of the sun. When the Earth is directly between Mars and the Sun, the two planets will naturally be very close.
All close approaches are not equal. If all the planets had a perfectly circular orbit around the sun, they would be. But the orbits are elliptical, like an oval, and they are inclined. The passage of other planets can even change the shape of an orbit. Jupiter, in particular, is big enough to influence the orbit of Mars, according to NASA.
Of course, "close" is a relative term. The average distance between Earth and Mars is 140 million miles. If the orbits of the two planets meet, Earth and Mars could technically expect 33.9 million miles, according to Space.com, which also reports that this has not occurred in history.
On July 31, Mars is 35.8 million miles from Earth. In 2003, the planets were spaced approximately 34.8 million miles
The approach of 2003 will remain the closest until August 28, 2287, says NASA. That day, the red planet will be 34.6 million miles
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