Mars will shine during October ‘opposition’

Mars is putting on quite a show for sky watchers this month.

For most of October, Mars will be brighter in the night sky than anything else in its vicinity, offering people a clear view of the red planet. Mars is also days away from reaching “opposition,” a celestial alignment in which Earth, Mars, and the sun form a straight line in space, with Earth in the middle.

Mars will be in opposition on October 13. On that day, Mars will rise when the sun goes down, peak in the night sky at midnight, and then set when the sun rises again. If it’s a clear night, sky watchers can expect the red planet to outshine anything else in its region of the sky.

Oppositions to Mars typically occur every 26 months. Since the Earth is closer to the sun, it circles the star twice in about the time it takes for Mars to complete one orbit. The oppositions can occur at any point in the orbit of Mars, according to NASA, but occasionally the alignments occur around the time when Mars is closest to the sun, as is the case this year.

Mars reached the point in its orbit where it was closest to the sun, an orbital event known as perihelion, on August 3. When it is aligned with the sun and Earth several weeks later, it is known as “perihelical oppositions”. These events are considered rare because they only occur once every 15 to 17 years, according to NASA.

The best way to see Mars is to go out at dusk and look over the horizon in the eastern sky. If conditions are clear, Mars will be the brightest object in that region of the sky, appearing as a distinctive reddish-orange “star.”

Mars will be visible to the naked eye for most of October, but amateur astronomers with telescopes can also glimpse features on the planet’s surface.

Mars came closest to Earth on October 6, when the two planets were separated by just 38.6 million miles, according to NASA. It won’t come this close to Earth again until 2035.

For sky watchers in the northern hemisphere, this year’s opposition is expected to be particularly impressive due to the position of Mars in the sky.

“Indeed, Mars will no longer be comparatively close and well positioned for northern observers until it reaches opposition in 2052, which will make this year’s opposition even more remarkable,” said Gary Seronik, consulting editor for the Sky & Telescope magazine, in a statement. .