After all the internet hype a couple months ago about Mars appearing “as big as the Full Moon,” and then suddenly vanishing, I fear the truth about our Little Red Buddy’s latest close encounter may be a little… uhhh… anticlimatic.

I’ll risk telling you about Mars anyway, without all the urban legend embellishments, and bruit proudly of the truth about that bright pink dot gracing our evening eastern skies.

Mars, as you know, is our fourth rock from the sun. A tiny rocky planet, it is only about half the size of our own.

Of course there are other rocky planets in our neighborhood but they’re tough to examine .

Mercury always hugs the sun, so it’s difficult to see in all the brightness. Venus is big and bright to be sure, but she is cloud-covered all the time.

Mars, on the other hand, has a load of features on its surface, and there is no better time to espy these than now - at opposition.

Opposition is when a planet is on the opposite side of the sky as the sun. As the sun sets, the planet rises and thus stays in the sky all the live-long night. From a big picture view, we in our orbit have finally caught up with Mars in its orbit. Which means not only is the planet up all night, but we are at our closest approach to it, as well.

These are two things that get the astronomer’s heart beating just a wee faster.

And as an added bonus, on this fly-by we are closer to Mars than usual. What do I mean by “usual”?

Mars’ orbit is not exactly a perfect circle. It’s actually rather elliptical, like the rim of a drinking glass seen at an angle. This means that sometimes Mars is close to the sun – what astronomers call perihelion - and sometimes it is far, aphelion.

Well you can imagine then that the best time to be near Mars is when Mars is nearest to the sun. We can just about shake hands as we pass by. It is then we get a fine close-up look at our little friend.

We were just about as close to Mars as we can get the last time we flew by the Red Planet. That was in 2003. But even though we aren’t now at the absolute closest we can get – Mars is just a bit away from perihelion - we are close nevertheless.

What also makes this year’s opposition so good is good position in the sky. Meaning this: We are at the time of the year when the sun is creeping lower across the sky, and the time when the planets at night will do the opposite. They will rise high in the sky. The benefit?

This means a planet will be high above the heat waves, off the horizon. There will be good “seeing” as we say in the biz.

So you will be able to see more clearly all those features that we’ve been watching for the last 400 years.

Get out a scope and scope out for yourself Mars’ polar ice caps. And see the dark areas in contrast to the light areas. When you do so you’ll be seeing history.

For the last part of the 19th century and far into the 20th century many thought that those dark areas were vegetation and that the polar ice caps were made of water. This, together with some vivid imaginations that saw non-existent canals strewn across Mars, made many people think that Mars was filled with… well… Martians!

So grab yourself a scope or get together with an astronomy club and go take a look at the Red Planet in the next couple weeks.

If you’re a glutton for punishment and want to see Mars when it’s at its most distant opposition, you’ll have to wait until the year 2832. March to be exact. Mark your calendar!

Until next time, clear skies!