opposition phenomenon Mars will happen on Earth on December 8, 2022 at 12.35 WIB / 13.35 WITA / 14.35 WIT. This quite rare astronomical phenomenon can be seen in Indonesia from the northeast around sunset.
In general, there will be no impact experienced by residents of the Earth when this phenomenon occurs. When this opposition occurs, the distance of Mars from Earth is only 82.2 million kilometers.
What is Mars Opposition?
According to the LAPAN Space Science Education page, oppositional phenomena Mars it is the configuration when Sun-Earth-Mars are in a straight line. Mars is on the opposite side of the Sun, so it’s known as the opposition.
With this configuration, Mars will be closer to Earth. Therefore, Mars will appear brighter than other nights, although it won’t be as big and bright as the Full Moon.
Occurs once every 2.13 years
The Mars opposition phenomenon occurs on average once every 25.6 months (2.13 years). Mars’ last oppositions occurred on July 27, 2018 and August 23, 2020.
This phenomenon begins when the red planet is in opposition to the Sun, the distance of Mars from the Earth varies between 54.6 and 102.1 million kilometers. This then renders the luminosity of Mars when opposition varies between -2.88 and -1.22.
While Mars opposition is analogous to the phases of the Full Moon, however, Mars will not enter Earth’s umbra as it does during a total lunar eclipse.
This is because the distance from the tip of Earth’s umbra is only 1.4 million kilometers, or about 3.7 times the average Earth-Moon distance.
It coincides with the occultation of Mars
This time the opposition of Mars coincides with the occultation of Mars by the Moon or the conditions in which Mars passes behind the Moon.
Mars occultation will only be experienced by Canada, Greenland, Iceland, parts of the United States, Mexico, Algeria, Tunisia, Morocco, Russia and all of Europe except the Balkan countries. Mars occultation occurs globally from 09.17 WIB to 13.10 WIB.
For countries that do not experience Occultation Marsincluding Indonesia, they will only experience the Full Moon-Mars conjunction.
Watch a video “Exploring Mars ends up leaving space junk out“
[Gambas:Video 20detik]
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