Mars and the Moon, moving in opposite directions, will cross the midline of the midnight sky, almost simultaneously. The Moon passes in front of the more distant planet – occults it.
This is a remarkable bundle of “middles,” a near-coincidence of geometric targets. And it happens near another middle: that of the northern half of the zodiacal band. It would be right in the middle if it happened on the Taurus-Gemini border, the direction called 6h right ascension. It happens not far from that, at 5h, in Taurus. At any rate it is near the northernmost point of the ecliptic, so that Mars is as far north as it can be. Here is how the situation is shown in our Zodiac Wavy Chart for 2022.
And here is how it appears above your horizon at midnight:
See the end note about enlarging illustrations.
(A few meteors may fly from the far southern Puppid-Velid radiant, belonging to a stream , described in Astronomical Calendar 2022 as needing more observation, fairly abundant, and producing some fireballs.)
Here is the sequence of events, with Universal Times:
Dec 6 Tue 19 Mars at northernmost declination, 25.00°
Dec 7 Wed ? Puppid-Velid meteors peak
Dec 8 Thu 4 Full Moon
Dec 8 Thu 5 Moon 0.66° NNE of Mars; middle of occultation
Dec 8 Thu 6 Mars at opposition in longitude
And here is the occultation of Mars, in a detail from the “Occultations” section of Astronomical Calendar 2022:
Earth is seen from Mars; in blue is the track of the Moon’s “shadow,” from within which the occultation can be seen. In the small side-diagram, the dots are Mars at intervals of 10 minutes as it passes south of the full Moon, as seen from the center of the Earth. This explains why the occultation track is across a northern part of the Earth.
In fact it is very conveniently across North America and Europe during night hours. This is a major occultation event.
You can watch it with unaided eyes, binoculars, or telescope. Mars is shining at magnitude -1.9; it is, for a couple of months around its opposition, brighter even than Sirius at -1.4 (and outshone only by Venus and Jupiter). It is like a red star added half way along the northern “horn” of the bull constellations Taurus.
The dazzling full Moon will seem to sweep slowly toward Mars from the right. Mars will collide with the Moon’s left limb (edge), near the middle of the limb or farther north if you are farther south. This will happen, for America, in the early or middle night; for Europe, around 4 AM or later. Because the planet has angular width of 17 seconds, it will take about half a minute to disappear. The red star will slowly fizzle out!
It will be hidden for about an hour; or a shorter time if you are toward the southern or northern limit of the track. Reappearance is more difficult. Unless you get a detailed prediction for your location from a source such as the International Occultation Timing Association (IOTA), you just have to watch and wait. The red star will pop out at a not-exactly-expected time and place on the Moon’s right limb.
Space is not flat, like the map of it. This experience could give a dynamic sense of our swirling system. The Moon is sweeping leftward because it is orbiting around us. Mars, beyond, is seeming to fall rightward because we are orbiting faster than it around the Sun.
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I was lucky in getting some good, clear skies for the Mars occultation here in NE England on the morning of 8 Dec. It hadn’t seemed so good when I’d last checked before turning-in around 01h UT (UT is the same as local time here currently), as then the sky was generally cloudy, and although the Moon could be seen, more or less, Mars then couldn’t. By 04:20 though, the sky was perfectly clear, with a keen breeze that made the sub-zero C temperatures feel even lower (the frost hasn’t lifted in three days now locally). However, Mars was sitting very obviously by the right shoulder of the Moon, still quite high in the western sky, and things progressed smoothly from there. I didn’t get a particularly good timing for the occultation’s start, around 04:52, as although I’d only been able to continue viewing Mars with the 7×50 binoculars since about 04:48 anyway, as too much in the full Moon’s glare, the wind made it difficult to get a steady-enough view. Mars was definitely gone after then, so a warm-up break indoors for about 45 minutes followed, before venturing back to hope for a better view of its re-emergence. The wind had eased a bit by then at least, and seconds after 05:55, the wait was over, and Mars had reappeared on the Moon’s dropped left shoulder! I watched on till after I could first see the Red Planet unaided again around 06:04, and decided some breakfast was probably in order to celebrate. Mars faded into the morning twilight eventually, more than an hour later, though the Moon was still visible until it slipped into some low clouds shortly before setting, just after 08:35. I’ve had little success with planetary and bright-star occultations previously, usually after clouds intervened at the critical time, and I gather Mars occultations are pretty rare beasts anyway, with one comment I saw suggesting the last such event visible from the British Isles was back in 1952, while the next isn’t till 2052. So, a very pleasing early morning all-told!
The occultation was occulted by your eyelids. It’s comforting that I’m not the only one that missed it.
I caught Mars beginning to move towards the Moon but way out at about 17hr..Then awoke too early at 0300 and thought I’d have an hours nap until 0430 as the Martian eclipse began here at 0458 however I woke up looking at the clock and it was 0600!so back to bed and I can only hope that it was cloudy but I don’t think it was!
I missed it dammit. I subtracted 4 hours from UT instead of 5. DST screwed me even when we’re on Standard Time. The moon was past it when I went out at 5:15 UT. But it didn’t look like it had covered it anyway. Probably had to be on the NORTH shore of Lake Erie to see a grazing occultation.
A grazing occultation would have been fantastic though. It would made my top 5 astronomical / meteorological events, up there with the total eclipse of 2017, Comet Hyahutake in 1996, the Leonids of 1999, bright rainbow colored cirrus clouds over AnnArbor circa 2012, and a young moon of 19.5 hours viewed in 1990.
It was 100% cloud cover last night but the clouds were thin so I was able to see Luna and Mars through the haze.
This reminds me strongly of 2007-12-23 > 24 when, in addition to an occultation of Mars by the Moon – just beside the summer colure, there was also an occultation of Jupiter by the Sun – very near superior conjunction of Mercury; indeed a Grand Syzygy. Imagine a line through space running from winter colure, through Jupiter, Mercury, Sun, Earth, Moon and Mars, then through Summer colure. ‘ll never forget it.
I should put on my list: Try to calculate dates when more than three major solar=system bodies (that is, major planets plus moon and sun) are along a nearly straight line projected onto the ecliptic plane.
I’ll try to see it, though we’re supposed to have 97% cloud cover at midnight. But that’s typical for Ohio in December. Ohio gets sunshine only 1 out of every 4 days in December. We’re probably cloudier than London this time of year.
At least our days are longer. We get 9 hours of daylight compared to 8 for you.
In the far west of Europe at an ungodly 0458 which isn’t a good time to have to get up for but we shall see? Although it is a very favourable weather forecast here.
Nice alliteration. It can be extended: Mars and Moon and maybe meteors meet at midnight.
Watching from the south shore of Lake Erie Mars may or may not be occulted, or maybe it will blink in and out of the moon’s mountains.
Let us know. That would be a grazing occultation.