What was that bright "star" near the Moon last week Mars of course, asthe Red Planet wandered near thewaning gibbous Moon early last Thursday morning, passingbehind the lunar orb when viewedfrom some locationsin South and Central America, the Caribbean, and Florida.The Clay Center Observatory expedition to Bonita Springs, Floridaproduced this evocative picture o Mars grazing the Moon's dark edge bydigitally stacking and processing a series of telescopicimages of the event. With the cratered Moon in the foreground,the bright planet Mars seems alarminglyclose, its global scale featuresand white south polar cap easily visible.Already impressive, the apparent size of the martian diskwill continue to grow in the coming weeks,until, on August 27, Mars reaches itsclosest approach to planet Earth in over 50,000 years.
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