© NASA/Hubble Space Telescope

Mars ends retrograde motion

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Outer Planets feed

Objects: Mars
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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.

1952 apparition of Mars

25 Mar 1952 – Mars enters retrograde motion
30 Apr 1952 – Mars at opposition
08 May 1952 – Mars at perigee
09 Jun 1952 – Mars ends retrograde motion

Observing Mars

Mars leaves retrograde motion as its 1952 apparition comes to an end, although it will remain visible for some weeks in the dusk sky.

Its celestial coordinates as it leaves retrograde motion will be:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Mars 13h57m20s 12°56'S Virgo -1.1 14.6"

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

From Fairfield , it will be visible in the evening sky, becoming accessible around 20:49 (EDT), 34° above your southern horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. It will then reach its highest point in the sky at 21:37, 35° above your southern horizon. It will continue to be observable until around 02:05, when it sinks below 7° above your south-western horizon.

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Over the following weeks, Mars will reach its highest point in the sky four minutes earlier each night, gradually disappearing into evening twilight.

The panels below show the month-by-month change in Mars' apparent size in coming weeks, as it recedes from the Earth:

Mars
14 Apr 1952
Mars
12 May 1952
Mars
09 Jun 1952
Mars
07 Jul 1952
Mars
04 Aug 1952

The table below lists Mars' angular size at brightness at two-week intervals throughout its apparition:

Date Angular size Mag
31 Mar 195213.6”-1.0
14 Apr 195215.3”-1.4
28 Apr 195216.5”-1.7
12 May 195216.7”-1.7
26 May 195215.9”-1.4
09 Jun 195214.6”-1.1
23 Jun 195213.2”-0.8
07 Jul 195211.9”-0.5
21 Jul 195210.8”-0.3
04 Aug 19529.8”-0.1
18 Aug 19529.0”0.1

The sky on 25 Jun 2024

The sky on 25 June 2024
Sunrise
05:19
Sunset
20:29
Twilight ends
22:38
Twilight begins
03:10

19-day old moon
Waning Gibbous

74%

19 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 06:13 13:50 21:26
Venus 05:45 13:19 20:53
Moon 23:04 03:58 09:00
Mars 02:19 09:14 16:10
Jupiter 03:35 10:56 18:16
Saturn 00:18 05:59 11:41
All times shown in EDT.

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

09 Jun 1952  –  Mars ends retrograde motion
23 May 1954  –  Mars enters retrograde motion
24 Jun 1954  –  Mars at opposition
02 Jul 1954  –  Mars at perigee

Image credit

© NASA/Hubble Space Telescope

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41.14°N
73.26°W
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