The head of the Astronomical Society in Jeddah, Eng. Majed Abu Zahira, revealed that the sky of Saudi Arabia and the Arab world witnessed on Monday evening a rare phenomenon, as the moon moved in front of the planet Al-Zabbani, and temporarily obscured it in a phenomenon called occultation.
He explained that following the event was possible with the naked eye, while it was possible to use binoculars or telescopes.
Abu Zahira added that the southern star of Al-Zabbani disappeared behind the dark part of the moon’s disk, and reappeared from the bright side.
While the moon’s disk was 58% lit, and the luminosity of the southern Zabbani star reached (3.5+), the star also suddenly disappeared, and then reappeared once more following regarding an hour.
The occultation was monitored in the city of Makkah Al-Mukarramah between (11:09 and 12:11) on Monday evening, in Medina (11:18 – 12:04), Riyadh (11:14 – 12:01), and Jeddah (11:08 – 12). :10), and Dammam (11:18 – 11:54).
many times
It is noteworthy that occultations of bright stars and planets usually occur several times a year, and often several occultations of the same body gather in successive months because the moon follows almost the same path across the sky every month.
The series of occultations ends a few months later when the moon’s path changes across the sky.
