All eyes on Mars! October is an excellent month to observe the red planet.
Mars will make its closest approach to Earth in more than two years this month , when it reaches its point of opposition in the night sky. It will be precisely on Tuesday , October 13, when the red planet will be in opposition. It will be the best opportunity to see our planetary neighbor in almost 20 years. It will shine brighter than it has been since 2003 and will not show itself in this way again until 2035.
What does it mean that it is in opposition?
Mars reaches opposition every 26 months, which means that the Earth passes directly between the Sun and Mars. In essence, an object is said to be in opposition when the planet is at its closest position to Earth and is visible throughout the night: the Sun sets in the west and the planet rises in the east. Mars rises when the Sun sets and sets when the Sun rises.
This year’s opposition is special because it occurs close to when Mars reaches the point in its orbit closest to the Sun, called perihelion (the opposite is the aphelion).
The two planets will be approximately 62.1 million kilometers apart , with the closest point taking place on Tuesday, October 6 (still a great distance, more than 160 times farther than the Moon), although there have been other occasions. where it has been even closer: in 2018, Earth and Mars were only 57.6 million kilometers from each other. Be that as it may, it’s still pretty close. We could see the record of closeness in 2003, when Mars was 55.7 million kilometers away, a measurement that will not be repeated until August 28, 2287.
Despite the fact that Mars was somewhat closer to Earth in 2018, for observers in the northern hemisphere the 2020 opposition is much more favorable, as the Red Planet is further north and therefore higher in the sky, where it can be seen (and photographed) with telescopes in much greater detail because the planet is observed along a shorter and more direct path through the Earth’s atmosphere.
Its maximum brightness at night of opposition, measured with the logarithmic magnitude scale used by astronomers, will be -2.6, surpassing Jupiter, which glows bright white in the southwest.
So if you are lucky and have clear skies these days, you will be able to see Mars at its best. You can find it as a light red dot near the Moon, as its characteristic crimson hue is visible even without binoculars or telescope. Naked eye. The best time is at sunset; looking east, the planet will appear as a bright reddish-orange “star” just above the horizon.
As if this were not enough, on October 29, the almost full Moon will pass very close to Mars, so you will have a spectacular astronomical couple.
