© NASA/Hubble Space Telescope

Mars at perihelion

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 closest point to the Sun – its perihelion – at a distance of 1.38 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 perihelion it will become visible at around 17:15 (EDT), 17° above your south-western horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. It will then sink towards the horizon, setting 2 hours and 45 minutes after the Sun at 19:16.

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 2029 can be found here, and a chart of its rising and setting times here.

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

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Mars 21h00m40s 18°13'S Capricornus 1.1 4.5"

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

The sky on 29 Dec 2029

The sky on 29 December 2029
Sunrise
07:15
Sunset
16:31
Twilight ends
18:11
Twilight begins
05:35

24-day old moon
Waning Crescent

31%

24 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 07:25 12:11 16:56
Venus 07:53 12:45 17:37
Moon 01:02 06:32 11:54
Mars 09:23 14:20 19:16
Jupiter 03:27 08:30 13:32
Saturn 13:25 20:23 03:20
All times shown in EST.

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

05 May 2029  –  Mars ends retrograde motion
28 Mar 2031  –  Mars enters retrograde motion
04 May 2031  –  Mars at opposition
11 May 2031  –  Mars at perigee

Image credit

© NASA/Hubble Space Telescope

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