NASA Science Briefing: Comet Siding Spring at Mars

Observers should direct their gaze to the southern sky at dusk on Saturday, 12 January to view the 6-day-old waxing Moon in the constellation of Pisces. Look a little closer around 6pm GMT in the UK this night to see Mars as a magnitude +0.6 orange-coloured ‘star’ above the lunar crescent. If you own wide-angle 7× or 8× binoculars, you can see the Moon and Red Planet in the same field of view.

Late winter sunlight hitting the surface of Mars at a low angle contributes to a striking Mars Reconnaissance Orbiter image of sandy terrain dusted with frost, producing graceful shapes that evoke… a duck?

A stunning Moon halo shines in the sky above the Very Large Telescope at the European Southern Observatory in Chile.