The Moon and Mars

I’ve caught a ‘Blue Moon’ more often than these two in the night sky once.

(This is not the clearest of shots, but it is the best I could do with my camera at the time.)

In 2018, Mars’ orbit bought it closer to the Earth than it had in 15 years and the planet appeared brightest in the night sky from July 27 to July 30 with its closest approach occurring on July 31.

With a minimum distance of 54.6 million kilometres (33.9 million miles), it’s not really that close, but certainly closer than normal, however, not so close that it appeared as big as, or bigger than, the Moon.  Those hoax emails do border on the ridiculous – we’d be in a lot of cosmic trouble if what they spruik is true and a great deal more than some movie producers idea of ‘what might happen’ should we have a close encounter with a rather large meteor.

After tonight, Mars will not be visible in the night sky again until next year.  What is referred to as a ‘Mars Close Approach’ occurs approximately every 26 months and will take place again on October 6, 2020.  (And October 31, 2020, is when we will see the next Blue Moon.)

– ⋅ o ♥ o ⋅ –

This is my next entry in my Blue Moon Squares as part of Becky’s ‘Blue’ Square in July photo challenge.