Mars and Venus Are Due to Merge Later This Month; How to Watch the Appulse?

Mars and Venus will appear as one in the sky later this month. However, the rare event might not be that visible.

Mars and Venus To Appear as One

The two planets will appear to merge in the early hours of Feb. 22 when their courses intersect with Earth. They are just half a degree apart at their closest location in the eastern heavens, in the constellation Capricornus.

The two planets will be at their highest position in the sky throughout the day. They will only be visible at dawn in New York and Los Angeles, where they will only be around 3 and 5 degrees above the horizon.

The two planets are extremely far from one another: Mars is 213,000,000 miles away from Earth, while Venus is approximately 129,000,000 miles away.

Since they are on different sides of the sun from Earth, that explains why they appear so near in the night sky. Mercury is not as close as the other two planets but still passes close to them in the sky. The 27th of January saw the conjunction of Mars and Mercury.

Those who can see the planets will perceive Venus as being significantly brighter than Mars, with a magnitude of -3.9 for Venus and 1.3 for Mars.

"The magnitude system used by astronomers is 'backwards,' with smaller magnitudes for brighter objects," explained Meredith L. Rawls, an astronomy research scientist at the University of Washington's Department of Astronomy and DiRAC.

The brightness of this star is surpassed only by around six others in the night sky. In order to put things in perspective, an object of magnitude 2 is only roughly 40% as bright as a thing at magnitude 1. From an extremely dark setting, the naked eye may see objects down to roughly magnitude 7. Venus is incredibly brilliant; its apparent magnitude in the sky is approximately -4.

The full moon peaks at -13, and the sun is at -27 magnitude. Two of the brightest stars in the sky, Sirius and Antares, have magnitudes of -1 and 1, respectively.

Do not worry if you cannot see these two heavenly bodies colliding in the sky; they only do it once a year. On March 21, Venus and Saturn are scheduled to pass quite near to one another, but this may potentially occur too far below the horizon for American viewers to see.

ALSO READ: Is Venus Spinning the Wrong Way? Why Does Earth's Twin Rotate Backwards?

What Is an Appulse?

An appulse is a phenomenon in which two celestial bodies appear to approach each other as closely as possible when viewed from a third object, in this case, Earth. The upcoming close encounter between Mars and Venus is an example of an appulse.

This is not similar to conjunction, which refers to the close passage of two objects at the same right ascension or the projection of the equivalent longitude on the surface of the Earth onto the celestial sphere. Venus and Mars will have a conjunction on the same day but a few hours later.

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