I understand Mars is pretty close to the earth right now. If I’m facing north where is it in the night sky? If I point at it, whats the horizontal angle between due north and my finger? Or the vertical angle between my finger and the ground? What’s a good time of night to look for it? Right now I’m on vacation in Northern California. (San Rafael to be exact.)
Thanks. Google was not much help.
Nope - Mars is not any closer than usual. See comments below from Phil Plait, the Bad AstronomerYou’ve probably received the email, haven’t you? The one that breathlessly says that Mars will appear as big as the full Moon in the sky? That says Mars will be closer to the Earth on August 27th than it has in 5000 years, and it may be 2267 until it gets this big again? If you haven’t seen it, I have reprinted it at the bottom of this page.
Don’t believe everything you read. The email is wrong. Mars won’t be closest in August, it won’t be as big as the full Moon, and it was actually closer back in 2003. But the best part is that this email is a joke, like a meme. It’s a near-exact duplicate of an email sent around the internets back in 2003, August 2003, to be exact, when Mars really did have a close apparition with the Earth. Someone out there in web-land took that old email and started sending it out again. It caught on, and now everyone has seen it. … In fact, in 2005, Mars will be closest to Earth in late October, not August. It’ll be about 70 million kilometers (45 million miles) away (compared to 56 million km/35 million miles in 2003).He also links to this Sky & Telescope article, which has a diagram to locate Mars in the night sky.
FTR, I didn’t actually think mars would be as bright as the full moon. I’m not the brightest light on the dope, but I’m not that slow.
Whew…that’s a relief.
I know that the chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one…
Sorry - I didn’t mean to imply that anyone here would believe the “Mars malarkey.” I just remembered that Plait had posted a note about it recently and went to his blog first.
I was under the impression that Earth lapped mars every two years or so, and that this was one of those times. I see I was in error. Damn, because I don’t get to see a starry sky very often, living in the middle of the city as I do, and I was hoping for something unusual to look at.
Mars is indeed heading toward opposition, when it’s brightest in the sky and above the horizon for the most nighttime hours. It’s a lovely sight in the night sky, but you’ll need to stay up late or get up early for the best view. From Sky & Tel’s Weekly Planet Roundup:
No, your impression was right. The linked Sky & Telescope article in Papermache Prince’s post says “As they orbit the Sun, the Earth and Mars make a close approach every 2.2 years or so.”
These are impossible questions to answer unless you specify what time of night you’re looking. Mars rises, crosses the sky and sets every day like every other celestial object.
When Mars reaches opposition, it will rise in the east around sunset, cross the southern meridian around midnight (1 a.m. DST), and set in the west around sunrise. Almost any time of night will be a good time to look. In general, however, from the northern hemisphere you won’t see objects within the solar system by looking north. Look east, south, or west depending on the object and the time of night.
turning to other celestial events, didn’t I read somewhere that Venus and Jupiter are going to have a conjunction soon?
Yep, go out after sunset as soon as it starts to get dark. Both planets are low in the west - Venus is brighter of the two, but both of them are brighter than anything else in that part of the sky. Jupiter appears a little above and to the left of Venus. They’ll get closer every night and be in conjunction September 1 and 2.
thanks.