The Moon and Mars will share the same right ascension, with the Moon passing 22' to the south of Mars. The Moon will be 14 days old.
At around the same time, the two objects will also make a close approach, technically called an appulse.
From Columbus , the pair will be visible in the evening sky, becoming accessible around 19:38 (EDT), 15° above your south-eastern horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. They will then reach their highest point in the sky at 23:50, 43° above your southern horizon. They will continue to be observable until around 04:43, when they sink below 7° above your western horizon.
The Moon will be at mag -12.8, and Mars at mag -1.5, both in the constellation Virgo.
The pair will be close enough to fit within the field of view of a telescope, but will also be visible to the naked eye or through a pair of binoculars.
A graph of the angular separation between the Moon and Mars around the time of closest approach is available here.
The positions of the two objects at the moment of conjunction will be as follows:
| Object | Right Ascension | Declination | Constellation | Magnitude | Angular Size |
| The Moon | 13h24m30s | 7°24'S | Virgo | -12.8 | 33'22"6 |
| Mars | 13h24m30s | 7°01'S | Virgo | -1.5 | 15"5 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 168° from the Sun, which is in Aries at this time of year.
The sky on 16 Aug 2024
| The sky on 16 August 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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89% 12 days old |
All times shown in EDT.
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Source
The circumstances of this event were computed using the DE430 planetary ephemeris published by the Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL).
This event was automatically generated by searching the ephemeris for planetary alignments which are of interest to amateur astronomers, and the text above was generated based on an estimate of your location.
Related news
| 21 Apr 1967 | – Mars at perigee |
| 26 May 1967 | – Mars ends retrograde motion |
| 27 Apr 1969 | – Mars enters retrograde motion |
| 31 May 1969 | – Mars at opposition |
Image credit
The Moon in conjunction with Venus and Jupiter, with the Very Large Telescope in the foreground. Image © Y. Beletsky, ESO, 2009.