The Moon in conjunction with Venus and Jupiter, with the Very Large Telescope in the foreground. Image © Y. Beletsky, ESO, 2009.

Lunar occultation of Mars

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Lunar Occultations feed

Objects: Mars

The Moon will pass in front of Mars, creating a lunar occultation visible from Africa, South America, Southern Europe and Western Asia. Although the occultation will only be visible across part of the world – because the Moon is so close to the Earth that its position in the sky varies by as much as two degrees across the world – a close conjunction between the pair will be more widely visible.

Unfortunately the occultation will not be visible from Fairfield.

The map below shows the visibility of the occultation across the world. Separate contours show where the disappearance of Mars is visible (shown in red), and where its reappearance is visible (shown in blue). Solid contours show where each event is likely to be visible through binoculars at a reasonable altitude in the sky. Dotted contours indicate where each event occurs above the horizon, but may not be visible due to the sky being too bright or the Moon being very close to the horizon.

Map showing where the occultation is visible

Outside the contours, the Moon will not pass in front of Mars at any time, or is below the horizon at the time of the occultation. However, a close conjunction between the pair will be visible across much of the world.

The map can be downloaded in PNG , PDF or SVG format. A KMZ file , is also available, which can be opened in Google Earth to provide a higher resolution map.

The animation below shows the path of the occultation across the Earth's globe. The red circle shows where the Moon appears in front of Mars.

You can download this video in MP4 or OGG format.

A complete list of the countries and territories where the occultation will be visible is as follows:

Country Time span
(UTC)
Brazil 02:34–04:58
Algeria 05:18–07:00
Libya 05:44–07:04
Argentina 02:29–03:40
Sudan 06:00–07:04
Mali 04:53–06:51
Peru 02:28–03:42
Niger 05:29–07:01
Chad 05:51–07:02
Bolivia 02:28–03:52
Mauritania 04:44–06:45
Egypt 05:59–07:05
Nigeria 05:40–06:46
Morocco 05:13–06:45
Paraguay 02:32–03:47
Turkey 06:06–06:54
Chile 02:27–03:39
Western Sahara 04:50–06:39
Ivory Coast 05:07–06:20
Burkina Faso 05:15–06:39
Spain 05:43–06:34
Guinea 04:41–06:22
Senegal 04:38–06:24
Greece 06:02–06:56
Tunisia 05:47–06:57
Italy 05:59–06:50
Ghana 05:25–06:27
Suriname 03:11–04:15
Guyana 03:09–04:06
Liberia 04:57–06:08
Benin 05:37–06:33
French Guiana 03:12–04:23
Colombia 02:52–03:36
Sierra Leone 04:47–06:12
Guinea-Bissau 04:38–06:17
Togo 05:33–06:27
Macedonia 06:14–06:38
Portugal 05:46–06:22
Albania 06:09–06:43
Cameroon 06:01–06:44
Venezuela 03:11–03:39
Ecuador 02:52–03:21
Bulgaria 06:17–06:36
Israel 06:04–06:56
Central African Republic 06:18–06:40
The Canary Islands 05:05–06:29
Cyprus 06:06–06:56
Gambia 04:39–06:18
Saudi Arabia 06:03–06:52
Cape Verde 04:21–06:07
Mallorca 05:58–06:33
Jordan 06:04–06:52
Palestinian Territory 06:04–06:56
Uruguay 03:00–03:13
Corsica 06:13–06:26
Menorca 06:02–06:31
Montenegro 06:19–06:31
Ibiza 05:56–06:33
Malta 05:58–06:52
Serbia 06:19–06:31
Melilla 05:42–06:37
RAF Akrotiri 06:06–06:56
Gibraltar 05:43–06:30
Lebanon 06:05–06:53
Madeira 05:27–06:14
The Savage Islands 05:15–06:22
Isla de Alborán 05:44–06:35
Islas Chafarinas 05:42–06:38

Lunar occultations are only ever visible from a small fraction of the Earth's surface. Since the Moon is much closer to the Earth than other celestial objects, its exact position in the sky differs depending on your exact location on Earth due to its large parallax. The position of the Moon as seen from two points on opposite sides of the Earth varies by up to two degrees, or four times the diameter of the full moon.

This means that if the Moon is aligned to pass in front of a particular object for an observer on one side of the Earth, it will appear up to two degrees away from that object on the other side of the Earth.

The position of Mars at the moment of the occultation will be as follows:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Mars 01h49m10s 6°41'N Pisces -1.9 0'19"

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

Next/previous occultations

« Previous Next »
Visible from the Contiguous United States Worldwide Worldwide Visible from the Contiguous United States
18 Feb 2020 09 Aug 2020 Occultations of Mars 03 Oct 2020 08 Dec 2022
18 Feb 2020 25 Aug 2020 Occultations 22 Sep 2020 22 Sep 2020

The sky on 6 Sep 2020

The sky on 6 September 2020
Sunrise
06:22
Sunset
19:16
Twilight ends
20:52
Twilight begins
04:46

18-day old moon
Waning Gibbous

82%

18 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 07:49 13:52 19:54
Venus 02:44 09:56 17:08
Moon 21:11 03:43 10:25
Mars 21:12 03:38 10:05
Jupiter 16:23 21:01 01:39
Saturn 16:52 21:36 02:20
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

23 Aug 2020  –  Mars 2020: a great chance to see the red planet
09 Sep 2020  –  Mars enters retrograde motion
06 Oct 2020  –  Mars at perigee
13 Oct 2020  –  Mars 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.

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Fairfield

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41.14°N
73.26°W
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