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SBAU.ORG => SBAU Calendar => Topic started by: TT (wasPW) on April 03, 2014, 08:19:21 AM

Title: The Opposition of Mars 2014
Post by: TT (wasPW) on April 03, 2014, 08:19:21 AM
Mars and Earth will only be 92 million miles apart at closest encounter on April 14th 2014, called ‘opposition’. Mars will appear red-gold, glowing brighter than first magnitude stars.
Only Jupiter, the Moon and Venus before sunrise will be brighter.

Earth and Mars are converging for a close encounter. As March gives way to April, the distance between the two planets is shrinking by about 300 km every minute.  When the convergence ends in mid-April, the gulf between Earth and Mars will have narrowed to only 92 million km--a small number on the vast scale of the solar system.

http://science.nasa.gov/science-news/science-at-nasa/2014/28mar_opposition/