If you were camping on Mars right now, you’d see a couple of bright lights low in the west at nightfall. The brighter and higher of the two is Venus. Just as it does for those of us on Earth, it shines as Mars’s brilliant Evening Star. It’s the brightest object in the planet’s night sky other than its two tiny moons.
Just below Venus you’d see the other bright object: our own planet Earth, looking like a blue-white star.
Earth is quickly dropping lower in the Martian sky, and will disappear in the faint twilight within a few days. That’s because Earth is about to pass between Mars and the Sun.
Over the next few Martian evenings, a fainter light will briefly move into view quite close to Earth: the Moon. Tonight, Earth and the Moon will stand so close that you’d probably need binoculars to separate them. But the two bodies are moving apart a bit as viewed from Mars, allowing them to be seen as separate objects with the eye alone – a beautiful sight in the Martian sky.
From here on Earth, Mars is putting in a great appearance almost all night. It looks like a bright orange star, and it climbs into good view in the east-southeast by about 8:30 or 9 o’clock. The Moon rises below it, about 45 minutes later. They climb high across the sky during the night, and are high in the west at dawn – a beautiful sight in Earth’s night sky.
We’ll talk about the Moon and another bright light tomorrow.
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