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

No Bull — Mars Double-Aligns in Taurus Tonight

Image
Mars shines from Taurus, an ancient constellation that represents the Greek god Zeus disguised as a bull. Tonight, April 3, Mars, Aldebaran and Elnath will form a straight line at the same time the planet, Aldebaran and the Pleiades outline a right triangle.  Stellarium I've had my eye on Mars the past two weeks. The planet is passing through the constellation Taurus the bull, which dominates western sky at nightfall in early April. This zodiac constellation is host to two of the brightest and most familiar star clusters in the sky, the V-shaped Hyades, located 151 light-years away, and the dipper-shaped Pleiades, 444 light-years distant. Taurus also boasts the first magnitude, orange giant star Aldebaran, which appears to belong to the Hyades but in truth is a foreground star. The bull's fiery eye lies just 65 light-years from us along the same line of sight as the cluster. Straight up from the Hyades, which outlines the bull's face, you'll find two stars representing
Read more

Groovin' with the Moon and Zubenelgenubi

Image
The half-moon will shine just above the bright double star Zubenelgenubi in Libra tonight (August 14), making for a stellar sight in binoculars.  Stellarium It's fortunate that stars have such cool names: Nunki, Aldebaran, Rigil Kentaurus, Betelgeuse just to name a few. One of the most fun to say out loud is Zubenelgenubi (zoo-BEN-el-je-NEW-bee), which also goes by the more prosaic moniker Alpha Librae. It forms part of the outline of the diamond-shaped Libra the Scales, a zodiac constellation which represents weighing scales.  In this 16th century globe created by Gerard Mercator Libra is shown both as a balance and the scorpion's claws. Public domain In ancient times, the Babylonians and Greeks alternatively pictured Libra as the Claws of the Scorpion, and included it as part of the neighboring constellation Scorpius. Its brightest stars still bear Arabic names that refer to the arachnid's pincer-like claws. Zubenelgenubi means "northern claw"; Zubeneschamali (z
Read more

Go Climb a Mountain ... on the Moon!

Image
  The Apennine Mountains will stand out boldly tonight (Oct. 24) on the 8-day-old moon. All you need to see them is a pair of binoculars and a partly cloudy sky. The mountain range defines the southeastern "shore" of Mare Imbrium, the Sea of Showers. You may also notice the 68-mile-wide crater Plato on the sea's northern shore. Bob King   I'm not a technical mountain climber. I don't use rope, only hands, legs and occasionally my rear end to clamber up and down the rocks. I don't mind expending the extra energy to hike to a hilltop because the wide-open view makes me feel happy inside and reminds me that I'm just a particle in the great stream of being.  A small telescope will show the Apennines, two additional mountain ranges and several prominent craters in the region tonight (Oct. 24). Mt. Hadley, located at the northeastern end of the chain, is the moon's highest peak.  Bob King With a small telescope and a little imagination, you can experience si
Read more