Mars will reach the end of its retrograde motion, ending its westward movement through the constellations and returning to more usual eastward motion instead. This reversal of direction is a phenomenon that all the solar system's outer planets periodically undergo, a few months after they pass opposition.
The retrograde motion is caused by the Earth's own motion around the Sun. As the Earth circles the Sun, our perspective changes, and this causes the apparent positions of objects to move from side-to-side in the sky with a one-year period. This nodding motion is super-imposed on the planet's long-term eastward motion through the constellations.
The diagram below illustrates this. The grey dashed arrow shows the Earth's sight-line to the planet, and the diagram on the right shows the planet's apparently movement across the sky as seen from the Earth:
The retrograde motion of Mars.
Not drawn to scale.
The panels below show the month-by-month change in Mars' apparent size in coming weeks, as it recedes from the Earth:
Observing Mars
Mars leaves retrograde motion as its 1986 apparition comes to an end, although it will remain visible for some weeks in the dusk sky.
As retrograde motion ends, it will be visible in the evening sky, becoming accessible around 20:00 (PST), 19° above your south-eastern horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. It will then reach its highest point in the sky at 22:19, 27° above your southern horizon. It will continue to be observable until around 02:03, when it sinks below 7° above your south-western horizon.
Over the following weeks, Mars will reach its highest point in the sky four minutes earlier each night, gradually disappearing into evening twilight.
The table below lists Mars' angular size and brightness at two-week intervals throughout its apparition:
| Date | Right ascension | Declination | Angular size | Magnitude |
| 30 Apr 1986 | 19h07m10s | 23°42'S | 12.2” | -0.6 |
| 14 May 1986 | 19h26m50s | 23°47'S | 14.2” | -1.0 |
| 28 May 1986 | 19h39m30s | 24°11'S | 16.6” | -1.5 |
| 11 Jun 1986 | 19h43m00s | 25°03'S | 19.2” | -1.9 |
| 25 Jun 1986 | 19h36m10s | 26°21'S | 21.6” | -2.3 |
| 09 Jul 1986 | 19h20m40s | 27°42'S | 23.0” | -2.6 |
| 23 Jul 1986 | 19h03m40s | 28°33'S | 23.0” | -2.5 |
| 06 Aug 1986 | 18h53m30s | 28°39'S | 21.5” | -2.2 |
| 20 Aug 1986 | 18h55m00s | 28°10'S | 19.4” | -1.9 |
| 03 Sep 1986 | 19h07m40s | 27°15'S | 17.2” | -1.5 |
| 17 Sep 1986 | 19h29m20s | 25°57'S | 15.2” | -1.2 |
As it leaves retrograde motion, its celestial coordinates will be:
| Object | Right Ascension | Declination | Constellation | Magnitude | Angular Size |
| Mars | 18h52m40s | 28°32'S | Sagittarius | -2.1 | 20.8" |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.
The sky on 27 Dec 2025
| The sky on 27 December 2025 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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58% 8 days old |
All times shown in PST.
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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
| 12 Aug 1986 | – Mars ends retrograde motion |
| 26 Aug 1988 | – Mars enters retrograde motion |
| 21 Sep 1988 | – Mars at perigee |
| 27 Sep 1988 | – Mars at opposition |
Image credit
© NASA/Hubble Space Telescope