Today's Image

Bright Mars

Tommy Eliassen Photography captured this photo of a very bright planet Mars on April 7, 2014, the night before Earth passed between Mars and the sun.  Visit Tommy Eliassen Photography on Facebook.
Tommy Eliassen Photography captured this photo of a very bright planet Mars on April 7, 2014, the night before Earth passed between Mars and the sun. Visit Tommy Eliassen Photography on Facebook.

Tommy Eliassen Photography in Hemnesberget, Nordland, Norway captured this beautiful photo of Mars at its brightest. There’s a second, much fainter planet in this photo, too. It’s Saturn. Mars is the bright one to the right. You can see Saturn rising over the house to the left.

Earth goes between the sun and Mars on April 8. We fly between the sun and Mars about every two years, at which time astronomers say that Mars is in opposition to the sun. At the 2014 opposition, Mars is brighter in our sky than it has been in six years, since December 2007.

Thank you, Tommy!

Earth goes between sun and Mars on April 8. Mars at opposition

Mars brightest in six years

Posted 
April 8, 2014
 in 
Today's Image

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