The Moon and Mars will make a close approach, passing within a mere 16.0 arcminutes of each other. From some parts of the world, the Moon will pass in front of Mars, creating a lunar occultation. The Moon will be 6 days old.
From Cambridge , the pair will become visible at around 18:59 (EDT), 20° above your southern horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. They will then sink towards the horizon, setting 3 hours and 45 minutes after the Sun at 22:13.
The Moon will be at mag -11.7; and Mars will be at mag 0.3. Both objects will lie in the constellation Sagittarius.
They 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.
At around the same time, the pair will also share the same right ascension – called a conjunction.
A graph of the angular separation between the Moon and Mars around the time of closest approach is available here.
The positions of the pair at the moment of closest approach will be as follows:
| Object | Right Ascension | Declination | Constellation | Magnitude | Angular Size |
| The Moon | 17h47m50s | 25°51'S | Sagittarius | -11.7 | 31'15"2 |
| Mars | 17h48m00s | 25°35'S | Sagittarius | 0.3 | 7"9 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 79° from the Sun, which is in Virgo at this time of year.
The sky on 18 May 2024
| The sky on 18 May 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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78% 10 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
| 19 Jun 1984 | – Mars ends retrograde motion |
| 08 Jun 1986 | – Mars enters retrograde motion |
| 10 Jul 1986 | – Mars at opposition |
| 16 Jul 1986 | – Mars at perigee |
Image credit
The Moon in conjunction with Venus and Jupiter, with the Very Large Telescope in the foreground. Image © Y. Beletsky, ESO, 2009.