{"id":3221,"date":"2020-10-12T10:48:36","date_gmt":"2020-10-12T09:48:36","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/abergavennyas.org.uk\/?p=3221"},"modified":"2020-10-12T10:48:36","modified_gmt":"2020-10-12T09:48:36","slug":"mars-at-its-closest","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"http:\/\/abergavennyas.org.uk\/?p=3221","title":{"rendered":"Mars at its closest"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Mars is currently at its closest point to the Earth and will not get closer for around 17 years, so now is the ideal time to observe it.&nbsp; Technically it was at its closest point on the 6th October but it reaches its opposition &#8211; that is when the Sun, the Earth and the planet are all in a straight line, on the 13th October.&nbsp; In the case of Mars the opposition does not exactly coincide with the closest point owing to its rather eccentric orbit.&nbsp; It will be well positioned for observing for the next few months but will be getting smaller as time goes on.&nbsp; Presently its diameter is just over 22 arc seconds but that will decrease by about 23% per month.&nbsp; Realistically you will need a telescope to see any details on its surface but the rocky and sandy deserts are then quite easy to spot.&nbsp; You may even be able to see the southern polar cap &#8211; although that is looking very small now as the Martian summer gets into full swing.&nbsp; The picture shows the planet from Abergavenny on the 5th October when it was almost at its closest.&nbsp; In this picture South is up and you can just see the little polar cap.&nbsp; The light coloured areas near the edge of the planet are clouds.<\/p>\n<p><a href=\"http:\/\/abergavennyas.org.uk\/?attachment_id=3222\" rel=\"attachment wp-att-3222\"><img loading=\"lazy\" decoding=\"async\" class=\"aligncenter size-full wp-image-3222\" src=\"http:\/\/abergavennyas.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Mars_230626_lapl6_ap11.jpg\" alt=\"\" width=\"384\" height=\"360\" srcset=\"http:\/\/abergavennyas.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Mars_230626_lapl6_ap11.jpg 384w, http:\/\/abergavennyas.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Mars_230626_lapl6_ap11-300x281.jpg 300w, http:\/\/abergavennyas.org.uk\/wp-content\/uploads\/2020\/10\/Mars_230626_lapl6_ap11-150x141.jpg 150w\" sizes=\"auto, (max-width: 384px) 100vw, 384px\" \/><\/a> summer get into full swing.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Mars is currently at its closest point to the Earth and will not get closer for around 17 years, so now is the ideal time to observe it.&nbsp; Technically it was at its closest point on the 6th October but it reaches its opposition &#8211; that is when the Sun, the Earth and the planet [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_s2mail":"yes","ngg_post_thumbnail":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-3221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"http:\/\/abergavennyas.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"http:\/\/abergavennyas.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"http:\/\/abergavennyas.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abergavennyas.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/4"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abergavennyas.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=3221"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"http:\/\/abergavennyas.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3221\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":3224,"href":"http:\/\/abergavennyas.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/3221\/revisions\/3224"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"http:\/\/abergavennyas.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=3221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abergavennyas.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=3221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"http:\/\/abergavennyas.org.uk\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=3221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}