Jakarta –
Hello to all space friends! If you look at the night sky, you obviously have seen a planet that is different from the other planets. Yup! This is the planet Marsthe red planet is the fourth of the eight planets in our solar system.
Perhaps you have heard the news that Mars will be as bright as the full moon. This news went viral in 2003 ago. So how exactly did this happen and what causes this phenomenon? Check out the following reviews:
The phenomenon that happened in 2003 was the phenomenon of the opposition of Mars. What is this Martian opposition? This phenomenon is a configuration when the Sun-Earth-Mars are in a straight line. Mars is on the opposite side of the Sun, so it is called “opposition”.
With this configuration, Mars will be closer to Earth. Therefore, Mars will appear brighter than other nights, although it will not be as large and bright as the full moon. The opposition of Mars is analogous to the phase of the Full Moon and the upper conjunction phase of the inner planets (Mercury and Venus).
This is because the entire surface Mars facing the Earth in the sun. This phenomenon occurs on average every 25.6 months (2.13 years), with the last phenomenon occurring between July 27, 2018 and August 23, 2020. When the red planet is in opposition to the Sun, the distance of Mars from Earth varies between 54, 6 and 102.1 million kilometers.
This is what then makes the brightness of Mars when the opposition varies between -2.88 and -1.22. When compared to the brightest star on Earth with a magnitude of -1.46; i.e. Sirius, the brightness of Mars in opposition varies from 0.8 to 3.7 times brighter.
The angular size of Mars ranges from 13.7 to 25.6 arc seconds. Compare this to the angular size of the Moon, which ranges from 1763 to 2012 arc seconds or 69 to 147 times the angular size of Mars in opposition. Thus, it is impossible for Mars to be as bright and large as the Full Moon.
When did the Martian opposition occur?
