As NASA’s Perseverance rover touches down on Mars this February, the Red Planet is also a great target for observers not long after sunset

Planet of the month

Our planet of the month is Mars, not just because it is an easy naked-eye object after sunset, but because it will be in the news a great deal as NASA’s latest rover, Perseverance, begins its mission to look for signs of life on the Red Planet, having landed in Jezero crater on 18 February.

Mars is an evening object, looking like an orange ‘star’ to the naked eye. It can be found quite high in the southwest as soon as the sky begins to darken, in the busy constellation of Taurus, and will be visible until around 01:00. As our observing period begins, Mars will lie almost directly below the Pleiades star cluster. As the days pass, Mars will move up towards the cluster, shining a little closer to it each evening, and by 4 March the two will be less than three degrees apart, when they will be a beautiful sight through binoculars and small telescopes as well as clearly visible to the naked eye. Mars will then slide slowly past the Pleiades, drifting to their left, and by mid-March it will lie almost halfway between it and the neighbouring V-shaped Hyades star cluster, which forms the horns of the Bull.