Home > Ephemeris Program, NASA, Planets, Space exploration > 01/27/11 – Ephemeris – Mars at superior conjunction

01/27/11 – Ephemeris – Mars at superior conjunction

January 27, 2011

Thursday, January 27th.  The sun will rise at 8:06.  It’ll be up for 9 hours and 37 minutes, setting at 5:44.   The moon, 1 day past last quarter, will rise at 3:46 tomorrow morning.

Starting today the planet Mars will be too close to the direction of the sun to send commands from the earth to Opportunity rover and satellites orbiting it..  The sun is noisy in the radio spectrum.  This is seen in the spring and fall when geosynchronous satellite signals are lost when the satellite passes in front of the sun.  This blackout isn’t total.  The Mars Odyssey orbiter will be receiving data from te rover daily and relaying it back to the earth but at a very slow bit rate.  The disruption of communications will last two weeks centered on February 4th when Mars will seem pass two sun diameters south of the sun.  In reality it will be 129 million miles behind the sun. and 221 million miles from the earth.

* Times are for the Traverse City/Interlochen area of Michigan.  They may be different for your location.

Categories: Ephemeris Program, NASA, Planets, Space exploration