© NASA/Hubble Space Telescope

Mars ends retrograde motion

Dominic Ford, Editor
From the Outer Planets feed

Objects: Mars
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Mars will reach the end of its retrograde motion, ending its westward movement through the constellations and returning to more usual eastward motion instead. This reversal of direction is a phenomenon that all the solar system's outer planets periodically undergo, a few months after they pass opposition.

The retrograde motion is caused by the Earth's own motion around the Sun. As the Earth circles the Sun, our perspective changes, and this causes the apparent positions of objects to move from side-to-side in the sky with a one-year period. This nodding motion is super-imposed on the planet's long-term eastward motion through the constellations.

The diagram below illustrates this. The grey dashed arrow shows the Earth's sight-line to the planet, and the diagram on the right shows the planet's apparently movement across the sky as seen from the Earth:


The retrograde motion of Mars. Not drawn to scale.

2035 apparition of Mars

15 Aug 2035 – Mars enters retrograde motion
11 Sep 2035 – Mars at perigee
15 Sep 2035 – Mars at opposition
15 Oct 2035 – Mars ends retrograde motion

Observing Mars

Mars leaves retrograde motion as its 2035 apparition comes to an end, although it will remain visible for some weeks in the dusk sky.

Its celestial coordinates as it leaves retrograde motion will be:

Object Right Ascension Declination Constellation Magnitude Angular Size
Mars 23h18m30s 8°16'S Aquarius -2.1 20.3"

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

From Ashburn , it will be visible in the evening sky, becoming accessible around 18:47 (EDT), 16° above your south-eastern horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. It will then reach its highest point in the sky at 22:50, 42° above your southern horizon. It will continue to be observable until around 03:41, when it sinks below 7° above your western horizon.

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

Over the following weeks, Mars will reach its highest point in the sky four minutes earlier each night, gradually disappearing into evening twilight.

The panels below show the month-by-month change in Mars' apparent size in coming weeks, as it recedes from the Earth:

Mars
20 Aug 2035
Mars
17 Sep 2035
Mars
15 Oct 2035
Mars
12 Nov 2035
Mars
10 Dec 2035

The table below lists Mars' angular size at brightness at two-week intervals throughout its apparition:

Date Angular size Mag
06 Aug 203520.3”-2.0
20 Aug 203522.6”-2.4
03 Sep 203524.3”-2.7
17 Sep 203524.5”-2.8
01 Oct 203522.9”-2.5
15 Oct 203520.3”-2.1
29 Oct 203517.5”-1.6
12 Nov 203515.0”-1.2
26 Nov 203512.9”-0.8
10 Dec 203511.2”-0.4
24 Dec 20359.8”-0.1

The sky on 15 Oct 2035

The sky on 15 October 2035
Sunrise
07:15
Sunset
18:31
Twilight ends
20:00
Twilight begins
05:46

14-day old moon
Waxing Gibbous

98%

14 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 05:50 11:53 17:56
Venus 08:47 14:02 19:17
Moon 17:27 --:-- 05:30
Mars 17:14 22:50 04:26
Jupiter 19:42 02:39 09:36
Saturn 01:53 08:52 15:51
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

15 Oct 2035  –  Mars ends retrograde motion
12 Oct 2037  –  Mars enters retrograde motion
11 Nov 2037  –  Mars at perigee
19 Nov 2037  –  Mars at opposition

Image credit

© NASA/Hubble Space Telescope

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Ashburn

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39.04°N
77.49°W
EDT

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