Stargazers will be able to spot a rare occurrence in the night skies this week – Mars playing hide and seek with the Moon.
Sometime in the early hours of Thursday morning (December 8), Mars will disappear completely behind the moon, an event known as an occultation. This happens once every 14 years, so miss it and you’ll need to wait until 2036 to catch it again.
You can expect to see the moon start to come close to Mars at around 4.30am. To know what to watch out for, you’ll notice a peculiar bright orange light in the sky, which is the result of a near-perfect alignment of the Sun, Earth, Moon and Mars.
These events also coincide with Mars being close to perigee (its closest point to Earth), which occurred on November 30. It will appear larger and brighter than usual, making itself easy to spot next to a full Cold Moon.
At around 4.58am, the Red Planet will completely disappear behind the Moon’s western hemisphere, and gradually reappear about an hour later. Those timings may vary by a few minutes depending on where you are located in the UK.
If the weather is clear, you should be able to see the occultation with the naked eye from almost anywhere in the UK. Areas with less light pollution may provide a better view, so best find somewhere completely in darkness.
The occultation should be visible across northern Europe, Greenland and North America. The top end of north Africa will also be able to view the phenomenon.
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