Transit of Mars from Uranus

A transit of Mars across the Sun as seen from Uranus takes place when the planet Mars passes directly between the Sun and Uranus, obscuring a small part of the Sun's disc for an observer on Uranus. During a transit, Mars can be seen from Uranus as a small black disc moving across the face of the Sun.

Naturally, no one has ever seen a transit of Mars from Uranus, nor is this likely to happen in the foreseeable future. Nevertheless, the next one will take place on 13 December 2018.

A transit could be observed from the surface of one of Uranus' moons rather than from Uranus itself. The times and circumstances of the transits would naturally be slightly different.

The Mars-Uranus synodic period is 702.653 days. It can be calculated using the formula 1/(1/P-1/Q), where P is the sidereal orbital period of Mars (686.98 days) and Q is the orbital period of Uranus (30,799.095 days).

See also

• Astronomical transit

External links

• JPL Horizons

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