Mars at Opposition

Mars in the Night’s Sky over London. Merge of images photos taken by the author

“Mars is bright tonight.”

So said the centaurs to Harry Potter, watching the skies from the Forbidden Forest just outside Hogwarts Castle. In the books this was meant to sign the coming battle with Voldemort aka He Who Must Not Be Named.

Mars is indeed very bright at the moment, but fortunately not due to magical battles but astronomical geometry. Both Mars and the Earth orbit the Sun in ellipses that are very close to circles and on Tuesday will be at their closest positions, as in the figure below:

The Mars is in Opposition when the Sun, Earth and Mars line up

When the Sun, Earth and Mars line up like this, with the Earth and Mars on the same side of the sun, they are at their closest, what is called the opposition.

In this figure, the orbits of the Earth and Mars are shown in circles but in reality are slightly elliptical. These means that not all oppositions are the the same, but some are closer than others. And this one is especially close, so Mars is particularly bright in the night’s sky.

It’s worth going out to have a look as you won’t see it as this bright until 2035!

The geometry of Earth and Mars was also crucial to the start of Martian Blood. In the first few chapters:

• Tom sees Earth in his sky early in the morning

• Sophia sees Mars in her sky in the evening.

This aligns with a very specific geometry, one just a few days after opposition, as in the figure below:

The positions of the Earth and Mars at the start of Martian Blood

So if you look in the evening sky towards the east in the next few weeks and see a bright red star, it will be Mars, and you will be seeing it just as Sophia sees it at the start of Martian Blood. It was this start that led to the conflicts that will continue throughout the Noctilicuents trilogy.

I just hope that we on Earth have a much more peaceful time, and that 2021 is a lot better than 2020.

Keep safe!