Mars Stays Up All Night

These photos depict the two hemispheres of Mars with a few of the most prominent features labeled. Olympus Mons is the largest and tallest volcano in the solar system with a height of 16 miles (25 km) and diameter of 374 miles (624 km). The hazy, white patches are clouds. North is up. Left: Damian Peach (Oct. 12). Right: Anthony Wesley (Oct. 4)

Today, Oct. 13 is a special day for Mars. It's at opposition to the Earth and very close to us. If you go out tonight and look off to the southeast after 9 o'clock you can't miss it. Mars is so brilliant that sometimes I find myself just staring at it, amazed. We won't see it as good until 2035. Heck, I'll be 82 then. I'm not going to waste a mesmerizing minute.

On Oct. 11, Mike Sangster of Duluth, Minn. used an 8-inch telescope to capture this photo of Mars and its two moons, Deimos and Phobos. Mars is so incredibly bright compared to the moons this was not an easy photo to take. Michael Sangster

At opposition, the Earth and Mars line up side by side on the same side of the sun. Because our planet's in the middle, between the sun and Mars, the two celestial objects appear on the opposite sides of the sky. Mars rises at sunset, culminates high in the southern sky at 1 a.m. local daylight time and sets at sunrise tomorrow morning. Call it a planetary all-nighter.


To celebrate I wanted to share a few current pictures of Mars and a sweet flyover video of the landing site of NASA's Perseverance rover, which is set to arrive next February. The video was created with real photos taken by the European Space Agency's Mars Express probe and shows Jezero Crater and an associated ancient river bed and delta where the rover will touch down. Be sure to view it in full-screen mode.

Like flying over planets? Yes? Well, here are few more flyovers made with spacecraft images taken at Jupiter, Saturn (just incredible, my fave!) and Pluto, respectively. Take flight — you know you need to!





Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Joy at Northern Nights Star Fest 2021

Image
A participant at Northern Nights Star Fest uses a filtered computer to monitor the progress of a photo taken through his telescope. Red filters preserve night vision. No white lights are allowed on the observing field during the event. Ben Huset   Last weekend I attended the 10th annual Northern Nights Star Fest  (NNSF) held by the Minnesota Astronomical Society (MAS). Members flee light-polluted backyards and head north to Long Lake Conservation Center in north-central Minnesota to revel in dark skies. I spoke at the event and had the time of my life. We've all been a little starved of company the past year and a half because of COVID-19 fears. Getting together with other amateur astronomers for face-to-face conversation and to share the night sky was balm for all. I'm grateful the MAS provided the opportunity. MAS member Jerry Jones speaks Friday night about the work of Edward Pickering and the women at Harvard College Observatory to elucidate the properties of stars throug...
Read more

Last Minute Guide to Tonight's Lunar Eclipse and Aurora

Image
  The seven phases of the eclipse are listed at left with time zones across the top — EDT (Eastern Daylight); CDT (Central Daylight); MDT (Mountain Daylight); PDT (Pacific Daylight); Alaska Daylight (AKDT) and Hawai'i-Aleutian Standard Time (HAST). Find your time zone, then read down the column for your local times. Blank boxes indicate parts of the eclipse that won't be visible from that time zone. Here's a last quick look at the upcoming total lunar eclipse that will grace skies across the Americas Wednesday morning, May 26th . From most locations it occurs as night gives way to dawn. The table shows the local viewing times for six different time zones from the East Coast to Hawai'i. If you live in Denver, for example, the partial eclipse begins at 3:45 a.m. local time, with the moon entering total eclipse at 5:11 a.m. shortly before sunrise. Only folks living in the Pacific Time Zone and points west will see totality in a dark sky. Wednesday's dawn eclipse will r...
Read more

Inspiration4 an 'Early Bird' Last Night, Lands Today

Image
The Inspiration4 ship and crew pass beneath the bright star Altair around 8:42 p.m. Friday night, September 17. At the same time, Object-B, a rocket stage from an earlier Japanese satellite launch, crosses the same part of the sky.  Bob King Sometimes satellites and spacecraft don't show up at their predicted times. One of the main reasons this happens is when mission control decides to raise or lower the object's orbit by firing the ship's thrusters.  Last night, unbeknownst to most, SpaceX lowered the orbit of historic Inspiration4 space capsule sometime before or during its pass over the U.S. When a spacecraft's altitude is lowered, it appears lower in the sky and moves more quickly. A faster speed also means it will arrive in view earlier than the original time. The higher the orbit the more slowly the satellite travels, the same way Earth takes more time to circle the sun compared to Mercury.  I set up the camera a little more than 10 minutes in advance just to tes...
Read more