Mars Occultation

In astronomy, occultation means one celestial object passing in front of another. It could be an asteroid passing front of a star and in a lot of cases it’s the moon passing front of a bright star or planet. On January 13th, Mars was occulted by the moon, visible in most of North America. From my location in British Columbia, it was a grazing occultation, which means just a part of the planet passed behind the moon. Mars and the moon rose very close together and as soon as it was dark enough, I was receiving messages asking “what is that little star right beside the moon.” I watched them move closer together for about an hour an a half and at 18:34, they appeared to touch. The whole occultation event lasted two minutes before they started to move apart again and I’m glad the relentless winter cloud cover parted ever so briefly so I could watch it unfold.