Mars shines high in UK skies

Within the first a part of December, Northern Hemisphere observers will take pleasure in their finest view of Mars till the 2030s. The purple planet can be excessive in U.Ok. skies and can seem brighter than any star.

Mars is usually described because the solar system planet most just like the Earth, with desert like landscapes, extinct volcanoes, water frozen in polar ice caps, and proof of lengthy disappeared seas and floods.

As we speak the fourth planet from the sun is a chilly and harsh world, with a skinny carbon dioxide environment, summer temperatures that attain a most of 20 Celsius, and winters on the poles that plunge to -130 Celsius. Regardless of this Mars continues to fascinate astronomers and planetary scientists, who see it as one of many locations within the solar system the place life may need emerged, and would possibly simply nonetheless be current.

Mars is just half as huge because the Earth, and comes near us solely each 26 months. These occasions are when Mars is reverse the sun within the sky, in so-called oppositions, and provide the most effective prospects for ground-based stargazers to see the planet.

This yr opposition is on December 8, and all through the month Mars can be a little bit over 81 million kilometers away. Mars can be at a visible magnitude of -1.9, making it brighter than any star other than the sun, and can be unmistakable in entrance of the celebs of Taurus, from the U.Ok. above the acquainted winter sample of Orion.

The elliptical orbit of Mars means some oppositions are higher than others, and for the remainder of this decade the planet can be additional away than it’s this month. It won’t be nearer to the Earth till 2033, and it is going to be 2037 earlier than the planet is as nicely positioned in U.Ok. skies.

By way of a telescope Mars can have a disk 17 arc seconds in diameter (1 arc second is 1/3600th of a level). That is nonetheless fairly small, however with persistence cautious observers will be capable of see the polar ice caps and darkish markings on its floor.

On December 8 there may be an added spectacle, when the moon will transfer in entrance of the planet. From London Mars can be within the western sky when the Moon begins to cowl it at round 0458 GMT, and the planet will reappear at 0559 GMT (occasions differ with location). This is a wonderful alternative for astrophotographers to seize pictures of the purple disk of Mars subsequent to the lunar surface.

In the mean time Mars can also be being studied by a flotilla of spacecraft. NASA, the European House Company, the Chinese language House Company and the United Arab Emirates have spacecraft finding out the planet from orbit, rovers driving round its floor and even the primary helicopter making brief flights in Martian skies.