Star gazers will be pleased to know that the planet Mars will be visible in the night sky this weekend. The red planet will be unusually close to earth and will appear as a bright yellow twinkle in the night sky.
Saturday, Mars will be closest to earth on this pass, coming within 43.1 million miles of our planet. Normally, the Earth and Mars are approximately 140 million miles apart. Mars will not come this close to earth again until 2018.
'This is the best we're going to see Mars, so we should strike the iron while it is hot,' Kelly Beatty, executive editor of Sky & Telescope magazine told the Associated Press.
Despite its relative closeness, Mars will still appear as small as penny seen from 620 feet away. Viewers with an average backyard telescope will see Mars as a small, bright ball. Nothing else on the horizon will appear as luminous Saturday night.
Star gazers with more powerful telescopes may even be able to view some details of the surface of Mars such as the planet's southern ice cap or even clouds.
