Mars and 1 Ceres will share the same right ascension, with Mars passing 9°54' to the north of 1 Ceres.
From South El Monte , the pair will be visible in the dawn sky, rising at 23:40 (PST) and reaching an altitude of 43° above the southern horizon before fading from view as dawn breaks at around 04:48.
Mars will be at mag -1.3 in the constellation Pisces, and 1 Ceres at mag 8.5 in the neighbouring constellation of Cetus.
A graph of the angular separation between Mars and 1 Ceres 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 |
| Mars | 00h23m10s | 2°13'S | Pisces | -1.3 | 15"9 |
| 1 Ceres | 00h23m10s | 12°07'S | Cetus | 8.5 | 0"0 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 116° from the Sun, which is in Cancer at this time of year.
The sky on 18 Dec 2025
| The sky on 18 December 2025 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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1% 28 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
| 18 Jun 1987 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 15 Sep 1988 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 18 Dec 1989 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 15 Apr 1991 | – 1 Ceres 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.