Mars Meets Monstrous, Mutable Mira
Mars can help us find the variable star Mira in the constellation Cetus the sea monster. The two are currently just a fist and a half apart. Mira is a pulsating variable star that physically expands and contracts, brightening and fading over a period of 332 days. Bob King The Red Planet squares off with a red giant this month. Mars is currently just 15° (a fist and a half) above and to the left of the one of the best-known variable stars, Mira the Wonderful. Mira gives cause for wonder because it occasionally glows as bright as the North Star and but then disappears from naked-eye view a few months later. Mira animation. Merikanto / Wikimedia Commons. CC BY-SA 4.0 Mira's light varies because it pulsates. and changes in size which affects its temperature and brightness. Picture blowing up a balloon, letting out some of the air and then blowing it back up again. When Mira contracts it heats up and brightens, and when it expands it cools and fades. You need a small tel...