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                           Astronomy Picture of the Day   
      
       Discover the cosmos! Each day a different image or photograph of our   
         fascinating universe is featured, along with a brief explanation   
                       written by a professional astronomer.   
      
                                    2025 May 30   
      
                                 Mars in the Loop   
                    Image Credit & Copyright: Tunc Tezel (TWAN)   
      
      Explanation: This composite of images spaced a weather-permitting 5 to   
      9 days apart, from 2024 September 19 (top right) through 2025 May 18   
      (bottom left), faithfully traces ruddy-colored Mars as it makes a   
      clockwise loop through the constellations Gemini and Cancer in planet   
      Earth's night sky. You can connect the dots and dates with your cursor   
      over the image, but be sure to check out this animation of the Red   
      Planet's 2024/25 retrograde motion. Of course Mars didn't actually   
      reverse the direction of its orbit. Instead, the apparent backwards   
      motion with respect to the background stars is a reflection of the   
      orbital motion of Earth itself. Retrograde motion can be seen each time   
      Earth overtakes and laps planets orbiting farther from the Sun, the   
      Earth moving more rapidly through its own relatively close-in orbit. In   
      this case Mars' apparent eastward motion began to reverse around   
      December 8, when it seemed to linger near open star cluster M44 in   
      Cancer. After wandering back to the west, under Gemini's bright stars   
      Castor and Pollux, Mars returned to pose near M44 by early May. At its   
      brightest near opposition on 2025 January 16, Mars was a mere 96   
      million kilometers away.   
      
                          Tomorrow's picture: afterimage   
        __________________________________________________________________   
      
          Authors & editors: Robert Nemiroff (MTU) & Jerry Bonnell (UMCP)   
               NASA Official: Amber Straughn Specific rights apply.   
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                         A service of: ASD at NASA / GSFC,   
                              NASA Science Activation   
                                & Michigan Tech. U.   
      
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