The planets Mars and Neptune will make a close approach, passing within a mere 12.8 arcminutes of each other.
From Cambridge however, the pair will not be observable – they will reach their highest point in the sky during daytime and will be no higher than 18° above the horizon at dusk.
Mars will be at mag 1.2; and Neptune will be at mag 8.0. Both objects will lie in the constellation Aquarius.
They will be close enough to fit within the field of view of a telescope, but will also be visible 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 Mars and Neptune 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 |
| Mars | 22h31m20s | 10°17'S | Aquarius | 1.2 | 4"5 |
| Neptune | 22h31m00s | 10°05'S | Aquarius | 8.0 | 2"2 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 36° from the Sun, which is in Sagittarius at this time of year.
The sky on 2 May 2024
| The sky on 2 May 2024 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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33% 24 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.
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| 16 Nov 2014 | – Neptune ends retrograde motion |
| 12 Jun 2015 | – Neptune enters retrograde motion |
| 31 Aug 2015 | – Neptune at opposition |
| 18 Nov 2015 | – Neptune ends retrograde motion |
Image credit
The Moon in conjunction with Venus and Jupiter, with the Very Large Telescope in the foreground. Image © Y. Beletsky, ESO, 2009.