Astronomy Picture of the Day

    Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our
      fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation
                    written by a professional astronomer.

                              2020 September 11

                          The Reappearance of Mars
         Image Credit & Copyright: David Duarte and Romualdo Caldas

   Explanation: Mars reappears just beyond the Moon's dark limb in this
   stack of sharp video frames captured on September 6. Of course to
   reappear it had to disappear in the first place. It did that over an
   hour earlier when the sunlit southern edge of the waning gibbous Moon
   passed in front of the Red Planet as seen from Maceio, Brazil. The
   lunar occultation came as the Moon was near apogee, about 400,000
   kilometers away. Mars was almost 180 times more distant. It was the
   fourth lunar occultation of Mars visible from planet Earth in 2020.
   Visible from some southern latitudes, the fifth lunar occultation of
   Mars in 2020 will take place on October 3 when the Moon and Mars are
   both nearly opposite the Sun in planet Earth's sky.

                      Tomorrow's picture: 1,000 Meteors
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       Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)
            NASA Official: Phillip Newman Specific rights apply.
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                             & Michigan Tech. U.


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