The planet Mars is one of the most intriguing objects in the solar system and the coming two months offer some of the best opportunities to see this planet this year. Just look towards the east after sunset and you will easily see Mars as the bright orange-red ‘star’ in the constellation Leo.
To us Mars appears more similar to the Earth than all of the other planets because through a telescope we can observe its surface, atmospheric clouds and hazes, and its brilliant white polar caps.
The icy polar caps are composed of frozen carbon dioxide and underlying water ice, and grow and shrink during the Martian year.
These aspects, along with the changing seasons and the possibility of life, have made Mars one of the most studied planets in our solar system.
In the past observers dreamt up Martian civilisations and a network of man-madecanals to channel water from the polar caps to the equatorial regions of the planet.
Unfortunately none of this has resulted from robotic missions to the planet since Mariner 4 in 1965.
Instead, Mars has revealed itself as a barren red desert with chasms, valleys and mountains, but no life.
Winds on Mars can create huge dust storms that envelop an entire hemisphere with dust and sand swept up from the surface. While water on Mars does exist in the form of ice and water vapour in its thin atmosphere, there is no evidence of flowing water on the planet.
The situation, though, might have been different thousands of years ago, as many geological features typically formed by large amounts of flowing water have been identified.
In spite of Mars being a world without little green men, it keeps astronomers all over the world busy recording its changing weather patterns and tracking the many features on the planet’s surface visible from the Earth itself.
Members of the Astronomical Society of Malta like Winston Grech are now turning their telescopes onto Mars to photograph the planet at its closest approach to the Earth for the coming months.
Visible in the centre of this image shot on February 24 is the Africa-shaped feature known as Syrtis Major. Its dark colour comes from the basaltic volcanic rock of the region as well as the relative lack of surface dust. Also visible is the white polar cap as the bottom of the image as well as clouds on the left-hand side.
Astronomical events this month
| Date | Event |
| Tomorrow | Mars closest to Earth at 101 million kilometres |
| Thursday | Full moon |
| Next Sunday | The moon close to the planet Saturn and to the star Spica in Virgo(morning sky) |
| March 13 | Jupiter at its closest approach to Venus (evening sky) |
| March 15 | Last quarter moon – the part of the moon that appears lighted continues to shrink every day until the new moon. |
| March 22 | New moon |
| Friday 23 | Very thin lunar crescent – can you manage to see the moon today immediately after sunset? |
| March 25 | Crescent moon close to the planet Jupiter (evening sky). |
| March 26 | The moon close to the planet Venus (evening sky). |
| March 30 | First quarter moon – one-half of the moon appears illuminated by direct sunlight while the illuminated part is increasing. |
For up-to-date information join the Astronomical Society of Malta’s group on Facebook at www.facebook.com/groups/maltastro.
Architect Alexei Pace is president of the Astronomical Society of Malta.
E-mail: info@maltastro.org.