On the morning of Sunday, September 6, 2020, parts of the Arab world are witnessing a rare phenomenon where the moon will move in front of the planet Mars and block it temporarily in a phenomenon called occultation and the event can be followed with the naked eye, binoculars or telescope.
The phenomenon of the occultation of Mars will be observed in the Kingdom of Morocco and the Republic of Mauritania before sunrise, in addition to central South America.
In the rest of the Arab regions, the event will be observed as a conjunction only between the moon and Mars, as it will separate them about one degree before sunrise, but occultation will not be seen due to its occurrence in the daytime sky in these areas where sunlight blurs the natural lights in the dome of the sky.
The Jeddah Astronomical Society revealed in a report that Mars will disappear behind the illuminated part of the moon’s disk and will reappear from the dark side, during this event the moon will be in a diminishing humpback phase and lit by 87.5%, while the brightness of Mars reaches (-1.8), and in contrast to the responses of the stars Where the star suddenly disappears, the protests of the planets are slow, so at dawn on Sunday it will take several seconds for the moon to completely cover Mars and a similar period of time when it reappears..
Observers in the Mauritanian city of Nouakchott will be able to observe the phenomenon with the beginning of the partial occultation of Mars at (04:46:53 am) – according to local time – followed by the total occultation at (04:47:57 am) and the planet will remain behind the moon until it returns To appear from (the bottom of the moon in relation to the observer) and the total occultation ends at (06:21:53 AM) followed by the end of the partial occultation (06:22:52 s).
In addition to monitoring the phenomenon in several Moroccan regions, in the city of Rabat, a partial occultation will begin – according to local time– At (06:34:18 AM), this total occultation will follow at (06:35:36 AM) and the planet will reappear from (the bottom of the moon for the observer) in conjunction with the sunrise.
In general, Mars and the Moon will appear close to each other, and this is only on the dome of the sky because they are located along the same line of sight as seen from the Earth, so the moon is at a distance of 405.483 km, while Mars is further at a distance of 71 million km at the present time.
Conjunction is an astronomical event that occurs when a celestial body disappears by another celestial body passing between it and the observer. Usually the term occlusion is used when the moon passes in front of one of the stars or planets located in the zodiac, and occultation can only be seen from a small part of the surface of the earth because the moon is much closer to The earth is one of the other celestial bodies, so its exact position in the sky varies depending on your location on the earth, as it is seen from two points on either side of the earth by two degrees, or four times the diameter of the full moon.
It means that if the moon is aligned to pass in front of a planet or a star for an observer on one side of the earth, it will appear two degrees away from that object on the other side of the earth, so for the rest of the world, the moon will appear to pass near the red planet only .
The occultations of bright stars and planets usually occur several times a year, and many occultations of the same object often cluster in successive months, since the moon follows roughly the same path across the sky every month, and the series of protests ends a few months later, when the path of the moon changes through The sky.
The planet Mars is considered a major target of interest in the year 2020, as it will fall into convergence and the closest distance to the Earth in October, which means that this summer was the season for the launch of spacecraft, as several missions are now traveling to the Red Planet, including the (March 2020 Rover) probe. For NASA, and China’s first orbiter and rover, the United Arab Emirates’ Hope Probe.
The report indicated that there are five responses to Mars in the year 2020, but the event of September 6 is the only event seen in parts of the Arab world.
In another context, the planet Mars reaches the state of convergence and the closest distance from the Earth in the second half of October 2020, and it is rumored that the planet will appear to the observer with the naked eye as large as the full moon in the Earth’s sky and that the view will be beautiful and we will see it once in our life.
Scientifically, the planet Mars can never appear to the naked eye as the full moon in the Earth’s sky to the naked eye, whatever the distance between it and our planet, and as seen from the earth when Mars is side by side with the full moon, the diameter of Mars is about 1/140 the diameter of the full moon, which means That about 140 planets like Mars would need to be placed side by side to reach the diameter of the moon
In general, the size of the planet Mars is smaller than the earth, but it is larger than the moon, except that Mars is much farther from the earth, the moon is about a light second away from the earth, so the light that moves at a speed of 186,000 miles per second when reflected from the surface of the moon takes about a second to reach us here on earth.
As for the light reflected from Mars, it takes a little longer to reach the Earth from about a few minutes to 20 minutes, and this difference is a result of the fact that the Earth and Mars move around the sun, so when Mars and Earth are on the same side of the sun, the distance between them is less, unlike when they are on a different side from the sun .
The phenomenon that corresponds to Mars and its location at the closest distance deserves monitoring because this planet at this time is its disk fully lit by the light of the sun, and it is the only one whose surface details can be seen from the earth, while Mercury is very small and the other planet is covered with clouds, so it is an ideal event for everyone Mars will be clearly visible throughout the night and easily identifiable in the dome of the sky.
When observing Mars with the naked eye, it will appear as a point of light in the orange-red color that characterizes this planet, and when using the binoculars it will also appear as a point of light without clear features completely as if you are looking at it with the naked eye, so the binoculars are not suitable for observing Mars, so there is a need to use an 8-size telescope Inches at least to see clearly the contours of the planet.
It is worth noting that the rumor of the emergence of Mars the size of the full moon began in 2003, on August 27 of that year, Earth and Mars were at their closest distance, which is the closest in 60,000 years, as the distance between the center of the Earth and the center of Mars was less than 35 million miles, but in the end Mars appeared Just a bright point of light only to the naked eye and it was not as big as the full moon, but rumor and myth always find someone promoting it..
The moon blocks Mars
– .
