Children play against the backdrop of the full moon, known as the Cold Moon when it rises, on December 7… [+] 2022 in Portland, England. (Photo by Finnbarr Webster/Getty Images)
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That a full “Cold Moon” can “hide” a planet is not particularly unusual, but the coincidences have piled up this week to make this event quite special and a fascinating sight for sky watchers.
You see, Mars wasn’t just a dot in the sky that disappeared for a few minutes. Mars is at its highest, brightest and best this week. The Red Planet is an “opposition”, something that only happens every 26 months and sees our fastest moving planet precisely between it and the Sun.
The cold full moon rises behind the Salesforce Tower in San Francisco, California, United States on… [+] December 7, 2022. (Photo by Tayfun Coskun/Anadolu Agency via Getty Images)
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So on the night of Wednesday, December 7, 2022, a full Moon, which has recently risen in the east in an orange flame, blotted out a super-bright Mars for up to an hour, it was the undoubted astronomical event of the ‘year.
Sky watchers saw the bright red planet disappear behind the limb of the full Moon, which took about a minute, before reappearing on the opposite side an hour or so later. Most of North America, northern Mexico, Europe, and northern Africa attended the event. A nightly prime-time event on December 7 for North America, Europe and Africa saw it as a pre-dawn event on December 8.
It all happened while Mars was in the constellation of Taurus, “the bull” with the bright red planet at magnitude -1.9. Astrophotographers who captured the event included Tom Williams, John Krauss, and Andrew McCarthy.
If Mars was occulted almost at the exact moment, it was bigger, brighter and better since 2022 and until 2025 was not enough, there were many other coincidences that added to the attraction of the event .
The full “Cold Moon” rising as seen from the Stubai Glacier, Austria.
Jamie Carter
It has been exactly 50 years since the night launch of the Apollo 17 mission, the last manned mission to land humans on the Moon. On December 7, 1972, astronauts Gene Cernan, Harrison Schmitt, and Ronald Evans (as well as five live mice) left the Kennedy Space Center atop a Saturn V rocket, with Cernan and Schmitt spending three days on the lunar surface in Taurus–Littrow.
On December 13, Cernan stepped back inside the lunar module with the words “When we leave the Moon in Taurus–Littrow, we leave as we came and, God willing, when we return, with peace and hope for all humanity Congratulations to the crew of Apollo 17.
The last full moon of the year known as the cold moon rises above the ancient Parthenon temple… [+] during a cloudy day, in Athens, Wednesday, December 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Petros Giannakouris)
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This remarkable anniversary was given a layer of meaning because while watching the Moon occult Mars, a target for a manned NASA mission perhaps in the 2030s or 2040s, a human-qualified NASA spacecraft had just pass only 21 miles from the lunar surface.
Designed for manned trips to the Moon and Mars, Orion has held the record since late November for the furthest human-classified spacecraft to travel from Earth. Its Artemis I mission has not been manned, but its next mission, Artemis II, will take astronauts beyond the Moon, probably in 2025.
The last full moon of the year known as the Cold Moon rises behind the Galata Tower in Istanbul, Turkey, … [+] Wednesday, December 7, 2022. (AP Photo/Emrah Gurel)
Copyright 2022 The Associated Press. All rights reserved
Orion will splash over the Pacific Ocean on December 11, but before that happens, it’s worth spending some time looking at Mars as the Moon moves away.
With Mars in opposition, it’s the biggest, brightest and best as it rises in the east after dark, so it’s the perfect time to put a small telescope on the red planet to catch a glimpse of its redness and , if you’re lucky, its polar ice. caps
I wish you clear skies and wide eyes.