THIS MONTH’S PLANETS
Mars prepares for opposition in the summer sky, while the gas planets will also be an easy catch in the evening
PLANET OF THE MONTH
Mars might be a frozen dustball of a planet, but it’s warming up nicely for its Opposition at the end of the year, when it will be very close to Earth and very bright in our night sky, too.
During the month ahead, the famous Red Planet – which is actually more of a mandarin orange colour when you see it in the sky – will be obvious to the naked eye, looking like a bright ‘star’ in the constellation of Taurus. You won’t have any trouble identifying it because, with a magnitude of 0.1, it will be brighter than any of the stars in that constellation, even Aldebaran, which is the brightest. At the start of our observing period, Mars will be rising in the north east at around 11:30pm, which just about qualifies it as an evening object.