Don’t miss it! Mars will shine particularly bright in the sky TONIGHT before dimming for another 25 years

By: | October 13th, 2020

Image courtesy Wikimedia Commons

For those who love to gaze out into the beautiful night sky, it is the thing not to be missed.

Mars will be at its brightest tonight, on October 13. Mars will appear bigger and redder tonight and it will not appear this bright again for another 25 years. So you won’t get such a chance until 2035 when the two planets are next in close alignment. However, it should appear bright until the end of this month.

Reason Behind:

Today Mars reaches its point of opposition with the Earth between it and the Sun. Moreover, the orbits of both the planets are lined up at their closest to each other. This makes this opposition extra special.

You can easily watch Mars with the naked eye. If you have a telescope, probably you will be able to spot its surface features and polar ice caps.

Royal Observatory astronomer Hannah Banyard, said, “It’s a really good chance to view it – the last time this happened was 2018 but it was quite difficult for a lot of people to see because it was quite down in the horizon,”

“For about a month or so now, it’s been quite easy to see, as it’s getting close to opposition it’s rising earlier, so it rises from sunset and then you can see it and it gets up quite high into the sky, so it’s really easy to spot,”

Nidhi Goyal

Nidhi is a gold medalist Post Graduate in Atmospheric and Oceanic Sciences.

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