© NASA/Hubble Space Telescope

136472 Makemake at solar conjunction

Dominic Ford, Editor
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136472 Makemake will pass close to the Sun in the sky as its orbit carries it around the far side of the solar system from the Earth.

At closest approach, 136472 Makemake will appear at a separation of only 28° from the Sun, making it totally unobservable for several weeks while it is lost in the Sun's glare.

At around the same time, 136472 Makemake will also be at its most distant from the Earth – receding to a distance of 53.09 AU – since the two planets will lie on opposite sides of the solar system.

Over following weeks and months, 136472 Makemake will re-emerge to the west of the Sun, gradually becoming visible for ever-longer periods in the pre-dawn sky. After around six months, it will reach opposition, when it will be visible for virtually the whole night. A chart of the path of 136472 Makemake across the sky in 2011 can be found here, and a chart of its rising and setting times here.

The position of 136472 Makemake at the moment it passes solar conjunction will be:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Angular Size
136472 Makemake 12h39m00s 26°47'N Coma Berenices 0.0"
Sun 11h50m 1°03'N Virgo 31'51"

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

The sky on 29 Mar 2024

The sky on 29 March 2024
Sunrise
06:50
Sunset
19:35
Twilight ends
21:22
Twilight begins
05:04

19-day old moon
Waning Gibbous

79%

19 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 07:08 14:11 21:13
Venus 06:27 12:10 17:53
Moon 23:41 04:07 08:24
Mars 05:52 11:07 16:22
Jupiter 08:18 15:35 22:52
Saturn 06:11 11:38 17:05
All times shown in PDT.

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

17 Mar 2011  –  136472 Makemake at opposition
17 Mar 2012  –  136472 Makemake at opposition
19 Mar 2013  –  136472 Makemake at opposition
20 Mar 2014  –  136472 Makemake at opposition

Image credit

© NASA/Hubble Space Telescope

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