© NASA/Hubble Space Telescope

Mars at aphelion

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Outer Planets feed

Objects: Mars
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The sky at

Mars's 687-day orbit around the Sun will carry it to its furthest point to the Sun – its aphelion – at a distance of 1.67 AU.

Unlike most of the planets, which follow almost exactly circular orbits around the Sun which only vary in their distance from the Sun by a few percent, Mars has a significantly elliptical orbit. Its distance from the Sun varies between 1.38 AU and 1.67 AU – a variation of over 20% – meaning that it receives 31% less heat and light from the Sun at aphelion as compared to perihelion.

Finding Mars

Mars's distance from the Sun doesn't affect its appearance. From Fairfield, at the moment of aphelion it will become visible at around 20:10 (EDT), 68° above your south-western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. It will then sink towards the horizon, setting at 02:47.

Begin typing the name of a town near to you, and then select the town from the list of options which appear below.

A chart of the path of Mars across the sky in 2025 can be found here, and a chart of its rising and setting times here.

The position of Mars at the moment it passes aphelion will be:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Mars 08h07m00s 22°34'N Cancer 0.7 7.3"

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

The sky on 16 Apr 2025

The sky on 16 April 2025
Sunrise
06:09
Sunset
19:33
Twilight ends
21:13
Twilight begins
04:30

18-day old moon
Waning Gibbous

83%

18 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 05:18 11:15 17:12
Venus 04:39 10:46 16:54
Moon 22:34 03:09 07:38
Mars 11:49 19:18 02:47
Jupiter 08:52 16:21 23:50
Saturn 05:10 11:01 16:52
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 Feb 2025  –  Mars ends retrograde motion
10 Jan 2027  –  Mars enters retrograde motion
19 Feb 2027  –  Mars at opposition
19 Feb 2027  –  Mars at perigee

Image credit

© NASA/Hubble Space Telescope

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Fairfield

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41.14°N
73.26°W
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