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 October 1

                        Solis Lacus: The Eye of Mars
                   Image Credit & Copyright: Damian Peach

   Explanation: As telescopes around planet Earth watch, Mars is growing
   brighter in night skies, approaching its 2020 opposition on October 13.
   Mars looks like its watching too in this view of the Red Planet from
   September 22. Mars' disk is already near its maximum apparent size for
   earthbound telescopes, less than 1/80th the apparent diameter of a Full
   Moon. The seasonally shrinking south polar cap is at the bottom and
   hazy northern clouds are at the top. A circular, dark albedo feature,
   Solis Lacus (Lake of the Sun), is just below and left of disk center.
   Surrounded by a light area south of Valles Marineris, Solis Lacus looks
   like a planet-sized pupil, famously known as The Eye of Mars . Near the
   turn of the 20th century, astronomer and avid Mars watcher Percival
   Lowell associated the Eye of Mars with a conjunction of canals he
   charted in his drawings of the Red Planet. Broad, visible changes in
   the size and shape of the Eye of Mars are now understood from high
   resolution surface images to be due to dust transported by winds in the
   thin Martian atmosphere.

                      Tomorrow's picture: harvest moon
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