© 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.

2063 apparition of Mars

08 Apr 2063 – Mars enters retrograde motion
14 May 2063 – Mars at opposition
22 May 2063 – Mars at perigee
22 Jun 2063 – Mars ends retrograde motion

Observing Mars

Mars leaves retrograde motion as its 2063 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 14h44m30s 17°56'S Libra -1.3 15.6"

The coordinates above are given in J2000.0.

From San Diego , it will be visible in the evening sky, becoming accessible around 20:14 (PDT), 36° above your southern horizon, as dusk fades to darkness. It will then reach its highest point in the sky at 21:27, 39° above your southern horizon. It will continue to be observable until around 01:57, when it sinks below 7° above your south-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
27 Apr 2063
Mars
25 May 2063
Mars
22 Jun 2063
Mars
20 Jul 2063
Mars
17 Aug 2063

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

Date Angular size Mag
13 Apr 206314.2”-1.1
27 Apr 206316.1”-1.5
11 May 206317.4”-1.9
25 May 206317.8”-1.8
08 Jun 206317.0”-1.6
22 Jun 206315.6”-1.3
06 Jul 206314.1”-1.0
20 Jul 206312.7”-0.7
03 Aug 206311.5”-0.5
17 Aug 206310.5”-0.3
31 Aug 20639.6”-0.1

The sky on 29 Mar 2024

The sky on 29 March 2024
Sunrise
06:37
Sunset
19:06
Twilight ends
20:29
Twilight begins
05:14

19-day old moon
Waning Gibbous

79%

19 days old

Planets
Rise Culm. Set
Mercury 07:13 13:50 20:27
Venus 05:59 11:50 17:40
Moon 22:33 03:45 08:52
Mars 05:12 10:47 16:21
Jupiter 08:29 15:14 22:00
Saturn 05:36 11:18 16:59
All times shown in PDT.

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

22 Jun 2063  –  Mars ends retrograde motion
12 Jun 2065  –  Mars enters retrograde motion
13 Jul 2065  –  Mars at opposition
19 Jul 2065  –  Mars at perigee

Image credit

© NASA/Hubble Space Telescope

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