火星循环
(原标题: Mars in the Loop)
2025-05-30
浏览次数: 60
从2024年9月19日（右上）到2025年5月18日（左下），在天气允许的情况下，这些合成图像相隔5到9天，忠实地追踪了红色的火星，因为它在地球夜空中顺时针穿过双子座和巨蟹座。你可以用鼠标在图像上连接点和日期，但一定要看看这颗红色星球在2024/25年逆行的动画。当然，火星实际上并没有改变其轨道方向。相反，相对于背景恒星的明显向后运动是地球自身轨道运动的反映。每当地球超过并超过离太阳更远的行星时，就会出现逆行运动，地球在自己相对较近的轨道上运行得更快。在这种情况下，火星明显的向东运动在12月8日左右开始逆转，当时它似乎徘徊在巨蟹座的疏散星团M44附近。在双子座明亮的双星Castor和poloxx的照耀下，火星在五月初回到了M44附近。在2025年1月16日最亮的冲日时，火星距离地球只有9600万公里。
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This composite of images spaced a weather-permitting 5 to 9 days apart, from 2024 September 19 (top right) through 2025 May 18 (bottom left), faithfully traces ruddy-colored Mars as it makes a clockwise loop through the constellations Gemini and Cancer in planet Earth's night sky. You can connect the dots and dates with your cursor over the image, but be sure to check out this animation of the Red Planet's 2024/25 retrograde motion. Of course Mars didn't actually reverse the direction of its orbit. Instead, the apparent backwards motion with respect to the background stars is a reflection of the orbital motion of Earth itself. Retrograde motion can be seen each time Earth overtakes and laps planets orbiting farther from the Sun, the Earth moving more rapidly through its own relatively close-in orbit. In this case Mars' apparent eastward motion began to reverse around December 8, when it seemed to linger near open star cluster M44 in Cancer. After wandering back to the west, under Gemini's bright stars Castor and Pollux, Mars returned to pose near M44 by early May. At its brightest near opposition on 2025 January 16, Mars was a mere 96 million kilometers away.
© Tunc Tezel