In the sky of Saudi Arabia and the Arab world, after midnight today, Friday, the decreasing humpback moon is associated with the planet Mars; Where they will be separated by about 3 degrees in a phenomenon that you will see with the naked eye.
The head of the Astronomical Society in Jeddah, Eng. Majid Abu Zahira, explained that the moon and Mars will be observed towards the northeastern horizon, indicating that they will not appear together in the telescope’s field of view because the apparent distance between them is wide, but this can be done through binoculars.
He also said that observing the brightness of Mars on a weekly basis is very important to monitor how it will change dramatically between now and the day of the encounter in December.
Mars brightness difference
Abu Zahira added that the brightness of Mars varies greatly in the Earth’s sky, pointing out that Mars is not very large, with a diameter of only 6,790 km, and unlike Jupiter, the largest planet in our solar system.
He continued, “The diameter of Jupiter is 140,000 km. More than 20 planets the size of Mars can be lined up side by side in front of Jupiter, so Jupiter always appears bright, because it is very large, but this is not the case for small Mars, whose brightness is related to its proximity or distance. from Earth”.
He also reported that Mars revolves around the sun outside the Earth’s orbit and the distance between Earth and Mars changes, indicating that sometimes Earth and Mars are on the same side of the solar system and close to each other, and sometimes, as was the case in most of 2021, Mars and Earth were On almost opposite sides of the Sun from each other, Mars thus appeared faint.
red planet
The brightness of the red planet is sometimes attributed to the Earth’s rotation around the sun once, which takes a year, while Mars takes about two years to rotate once.
Whereas the encounter of Mars – when the Earth passes between Mars and the Sun – occurs every two years and 50 days; So the brightness of Mars wanes and increases in the sky about every two years.