[ad_1]
This Tuesday, the planet Mars it will be closest to Earth, at a distance of just 62 million kilometers, an event that occurs every two years.
It is worth remembering that the average distance between the two planets is 225 million kilometers.
Also read: Why will the Halloween full moon be special?
The approach between the Earth and the red planet is not unusual; in fact, every two years the two planets have close points in their orbits, when the Earth is further from the Sol (moment that, technically, is known as aphelion) and Mars at the farthest from the star (perihelion).
This is an event that, in general, the space agencies of the countries take advantage of to send their missions to the red planet.
See: The impressive timelapse of a supernova captured by Hubble
This is how Germán Puerta, communicator and scientific communicator of the Planetarium of Bogotá explains it:
“The earth goes around the Sun in 365 days, and Mars, in 687, but to the extent that the orbits of the planets are further from the Sun, they travel more slowly. This means that every two years the two planets are in the same region from space”.
Likewise, Puerta adds that the exact alignment between the three stars will take place on October 13, at which time it is known as opposition and in which the red planet will look brighter than usual.
Of interest: The Solar Orbiter mission publishes its first results
“The reason why the opposition and the closest approach do not coincide on the same day is that the orbits of Mars and Earth are not in the same plane, but are slightly inclined relative to each other,” he clarifies.
Also, according to the expert, during these days another quite striking phenomenon occurs: as the red planet is slower than the Earth, it seems as if it is returning in its movement in the sky.
For this purpose, which was very difficult for ancient cultures to explain, it is known as retrograde motion, and it occurs with all the planets in the solar system that are in more distant orbits in relation to the Sun.
Related news
Video: How a space rock bounced off the Earth’s atmosphere
They propose a non-biological explanation for phosphine on Venus
Science Writing
