Oct 13, 2020
Mars Opposition 2020 — Planet Mars is as its ‘biggest’ and ‘brighest’
A short description about Mars:
Mars is named after the Roman God of war because of its red colour. This terrestrial planet Earth is the second smallest planet in our solar system, only larger in size than Mercury. Its rusty iron on the ground makes its surface look red. Mars’s atmosphere is very thin, made up to carbon di oxide, nitrozen and argon. The size of ‘The Red Planet’ Mars is about half the size of Earth. On this planet one day completed in 24.6 hours and one year is completed in 687 days. That means it is almost twice as long as a year on Earth. Mars has two moons named ‘Phobos’ and ‘Deimos’ and it is the fourth planet from the sun. It is only planet known from ancient times because of its close proximity to Earth, the planet can be seen without advance telescope.
Mars will be brighter and more visible this week — Mars at ‘Opposition’
On Tuesday, october 13, 2020 ‘The Red Planet’ Mars is in its Opposition position, a moment when Mars is lined with the Earth at the same side ofthe sun. Every 26 months, the two planets Earth and Mars move closer to each other. After that they diverge again in their own seperate orbits around our stars. Last in 2003, Mars made the closest postition to Earth and the distance was only 56 kilometer. In the last opposition in 2018, Earth and Mars were only 58 kilometer away. However, the distance between Mars and Earth at Opposition can be more than 100 million kilometer as in 2012. This difference is due to the elliptical shape of the orbits of both Mars and Earth.
