04/02/2018 -Ephemeris – Mars is appearing to pass Saturn in the morning

Ephemeris for Monday, April 2nd. The Sun will rise at 7:21. It’ll be up for 12 hours and 49 minutes, setting at 8:11. The Moon, 2 days past full, will rise at 10:40 this evening.

At 3:02 this afternoon the planet Mars will pass the planet Saturn. The event is called a conjunction, which simply means they are on nearly the same line of sight from the Earth, and nothing more. It will make a pretty sight tomorrow morning before the sky gets too bright with reddish Mars being just below Saturn, by a bit less than 3 moon widths. Conjunctions of these two planets occur at intervals of two years give or take, since it involves the orbital motions of Mars and Saturn while viewing them from a third planet also orbiting the Sun.

Currently both planets are moving eastward against the stars. Saturn will slow and stop its motion on April 18th, while Mars will continue until June 28th. They will track westward for a while. This is because the Earth will be passing these planets this summer, which is called opposition (from the Sun).  Saturn will reach opposition on June 27th, Mars on July 27th.  Mars closest approach will occur four days later at a distance of 35.76 million miles  (57.59 million kilometers).  This is Mars’ closest approach to the Earth since August 27th, 2003.  Expect the return of the Mars hoax emails this summer.

The times given are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan. They may be different for your location.

Addendum

Conjunction animation of Mars passing Saturn at daily intervals at 6 a.m. for March 30 to April 4, 2018. This will occur above the Teapot asterism of the constellation of Sagittarius. Created using Stellarium and GIMP.

I covered the Mars hoax 5 years ago here on an August 27th when Mars was nowhere close to us.