Sunset over the canal

The sky was clear tonight and the sunset was beautiful.

However, I was out long after sunset hoping to spot Mars, which was at its brightest in our sky and visible to the naked eye. There are two factors that made Mars so bright. Firstly, there is “opposition” which means that the Earth passes between Mars and the Sun so that the Sun’s light on Mars is reflected directly back to earth. Secondly, Mars has a slightly elliptical orbit and it passes nearest to Earth every 26 months. These two factors mean that Mars was at its combined brightest and closest (or “least far” since it was 92 million kilometres away) last night for the first time since 2007.

Mars will be visible in the Northern Hemisphere all month and will actually come closest to Earth on April 14th, so hopefully there will be an opportunity to see it again. The Western Hemisphere will be treated to another beautiful celestial event this month on April 14-15 when there is a total lunar eclipse that will turn the Moon bright orange. Mars will also be visible very close to the moon that night. It would be nice to see... Perhaps someone will take a photograph…