The planet Mars is clearly visible every night throughout October, reports the US space organization NASA. Mars is particularly visible on Wednesday, because the planet is closest to the Earth at a distance of ‘only’ 62.1 million kilometers.
Mars will not be so close to our planet again until 15 years from now.
Mars reaches its highest position on the horizon around midnight. At the same time, the planet and the sun will be in the same position on opposite sides of the Earth on October 13. This happens once every two years. Because Mars and the Earth are closest to each other at the same time, the planet is clearly visible.
Visibility of Mars is best in open terrain, because there is usually less light pollution there. Unfortunately, there will be a lot of cloud cover in the Netherlands in the coming days.
It is the second time since 2003 that Mars has been so close to Earth. At the time, Mars was 55.8 million kilometers away, the shortest distance in 60,000 years. The next time this happens is in the year 2287.
On the night of July 31 to August 1, 2018, Mars was slightly closer than it is now at a distance of 35.7 million kilometers from Earth.
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