Good even fellow stargazers!
About every 26 months, our closest neighboring planet, Mars, reaches its opposition to Earth -- the moment that Earth is directly between a planet and the Sun. This also puts the Red Planet closer to our Earth in its orbit, making it glow slightly brighter as it approaches.
On the evening of Tuesday, November 29th and early morning of Wednesday, November 30th, Mars was at its closest to the Earth during this transition towards opposition. At its closest approach this year, Mars was about 51 million miles (or 4.5 light-minutes) from the Earth.
Right now Mars is slightly
brighter now than Sirius, the night sky’s brightest star, and it’s noticeably
red-orange in color. Mars will continue to increase in brightness until
its opposition on the night of December 7th - 8th, then will begin fading by the end of the month.
Mars is currently located inside the Constellation Taurus The Bull and will be for most of this month. Aldebaran, the brightest star of Taurus (also known as the "Eye of the Bull") also shares a slightly reddish color, meaning that there are two bright red evening "stars" in our night sky this month.
The following are the photos I took of Mars at its current location in the night sky compared to the brightest stars near it, as well as the Constellations Orion The Hunter and Taurus The Bull.
Hopefully I'll be able to capture a good image of our little red neighbor the night of its opposition, which won't occur again for another 26 months in January of 2025.
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