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What it is : Marsand the moonlight
Where it is : Thesolar system
Mars rising out of a lunar occultation on January 13, 2025, captured by the Shreve Telescope at Kitt Peak National Observatory near Tucson, Arizona.
When it was shared : March 26 , 2025
Why it ’s so special :
Something foreign happened late at night on January 13 , 2025 . Sometime between about 9:00 p.m. and 1:00 a.m. EST ( depending on where you were in North America ) , the full"Wolf Moon " drifted across Mars , briefly live with the Red Planet from the sky .
This striking new double from a new telescope in Hawaii stigma the moment the Red Planet reappear over the lunar horizon — a " Mars - rise . "
So - call occultations of Mars by the lunar month are not particularly rare . There were occultation in both the premature and following month , consort toIn The Sky . However , any specific lunar occultation of Mars ( or indeed any major planet ) can only be seen from a small sphere of the Earth ’s surface . That ’s because the lunation is far closer to the Earth than Mars , so what you see depends on your point of prospect from Earth ; the moon ’s spatial relation in the sky on any night can differ by about four clip the diameter of the full moon .
touch on : Full moons of 2025 : When is the next full moon ?
With the previous and following occultation seen only from the Arctic and Russia , stargazer at Kitt Peak National Observatory in the Quinlan mountains near Tucson , Arizona , only had one shot at capturing the celestial spectacle . What ’s more , the occultation of Mars only presents two very short opportunities to capture the outcome : the first , call ingress , is when Mars slew behind the moon and , for a few seconds , is seen setting beneath the lunar surface ; about an minute later , it emerge as a " Mars - rise " in what uranologist call issue .
photograph of the latter , enchant by two evening visitor guide at the Kitt Peak National Observatory Visitor Center using its new 0.6 - meter Shreve Telescope — a public telescope that visitors are allowed to use — has been made available asannotatedandzoomableversions as well as afull - sizing original .
— The disorderly meat of the Milky Way like you ’ve never visualize it before
— Hubble zooms in on the glittering galaxy next doorway
— The last mickle you see before dying on the moon
It ’s a special figure of speech because , as well as the rarefied heavenly alignment necessary for it to occur , it happened just a few days beforeMars reached opposition .
foe is when Earth is set between an knocked out planet and the sun , making that planet as near as potential and , therefore , as with child and bright as it can get . For Mars , opposition only happens once every 26 calendar month . That ’s because Mars takes 687 Earth days to orb the sun , and Earth take 365 days , so Earth eliminate between Mars and the Sunday every 789 days .
For more sublime space image , check out ourSpace Photo of the Week archive .
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