Mars and 1 Ceres will share the same right ascension, with Mars passing 7°56' to the north of 1 Ceres.
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 14° above the horizon at dawn.
Mars will be at mag -0.0, and 1 Ceres at mag 8.9, both in the constellation Aquarius.
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 | 22h58m30s | 9°06'S | Aquarius | -0.0 | 9"2 |
| 1 Ceres | 22h58m30s | 17°03'S | Aquarius | 8.9 | 0"0 |
The coordinates above are given in J2000.0. The pair will be at an angular separation of 88° from the Sun, which is in Taurus at this time of year.
The sky on 31 May 2020
| The sky on 31 May 2020 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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75% 9 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.
Related news
| 29 May 2019 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 28 Aug 2020 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 27 Nov 2021 | – 1 Ceres at opposition |
| 21 Mar 2023 | – 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.