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Watch Mars Make Its Closest Approach To Earth Until 2035
With its shrunken polar cap and its large apparent angular size, Mars is viewed here during Martian summer and while Earth nears opposition: where the Sun, Earth, and Mars all form a straight line. This image is from September 25, 2020, just 11 days before closest approach. This data for this image was collected using a 14" off-the-shelf amateur telescope. (MARTIN RATCLIFFE)
At its biggest for the next 15 years, it’s still much smaller than the Moon.
On October 6, 2020, Mars makes its closest approach to Earth until 2035.
Earth orbits in a nearly circular path, completing a revolution every 365 days. Mars orbits in the same direction, but in a more elliptical and slower, more distant orbit, completing a revolution every 687 days. When these two factors are combined, Earth makes its “closest approach” to Mars every 780 days: a little more than 2 Earth years. (NASA/JPL-CALTECH)
Earth and Mars both orbit the Sun in the same direction, but at different speeds and distances.
The relative orbits of Earth and Mars around the Sun over the timespan of ~20 Earth years. Note that Earth overtakes Mars and makes a close approach to it on timescales of a little more than 2 Earth years, but only when that close approach coincides with or near Mars’s perihelion (closest approach to the Sun) will Mars appear at its largest. (WAYNE PAFKO, 2000)
Consequently, Earth only overtakes Mars once every 780 days: just over 2 years.
NASA’s Mars 2020 mission, which includes the Perseverance rover, was launched at the end of July, 2020, and will arrive at Mars in February of 2021. This upcoming close approach of Earth and Mars, as Earth approaches and then overtakes the red planet in its orbit, is an optimal launch configuration that only arises every few years. (NASA/JPL-CALTECH)
As they both orbit the Sun, Mars can take on angular diameter values as small as just ~3 arc-seconds, but as large as ~25 arc-seconds, the largest percentage variation of any planet as viewed from Earth. Mars, at its biggest and brightest, can appear larger than Saturn and almost as large as Jupiter, as viewed from Earth. (JEFFREY D. BEISH / ALPO-ASTRONOMY.ORG)
The seven extraterrestrial planets of the solar system: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Saturn, Uranus, Neptune. Venus and Mars both vary in angular size tremendously, with Venus varying by a factor of ~6 and Mars varying by a factor of ~8 from smallest to largest. Both worlds, as depicted here, are close to their smallest angular diameter. (GETTY IMAGES)
This stacked composite set of images of Mars from September, 2020, shows how Mars rotates over the span of 1 hour. The polar cap, which is part of Mars’s south pole, can be seen to shift as well, as the surviving ice cap is neither perfectly symmetric nor directly placed over the geographic pole. (ANDREW SYMES / @FAILEDPROTOSTAR ON TWITTER)
Unlike Earth, Mars’s seasons are determined by its highly elliptical orbit, not its axial tilt.
The orbits of the planets in the inner solar system aren’t exactly circular, but they’re quite close, with Mercury and Mars having the biggest departures and the greatest ellipticities. When it’s at perihelion, Mars is just 0.38 AU away from Earth’s orbit, but at aphelion, it’s 0.66 AU away: nearly twice as far. (NASA / JPL)
Martian “winter” occurs when it’s farthest from the Sun, with “summer” arriving when it’s closest.
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