Astronomy Picture of the Day [1]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. 2021 March 4 [2]See Explanation. Clicking on the picture will download the highest resolution version available. Mars in Taurus Image Credit & [3]Copyright: [4]Petr Horalek / [5]Institute of Physics in Opava Explanation: [6]You can spot Mars in the evening sky tonight. Now home to the [7]Perseverance rover, the Red Planet is presently wandering through the constellation Taurus, close on the sky to the Seven Sisters or Pleiades star cluster. In fact [8]this deep, widefield view of the region captures Mars near its closest conjunction to the Pleiades on March 3. Below center, Mars is the bright yellowish celestial beacon only about 3 degrees from the pretty blue star cluster. Competing with Mars in color and brightness, [9]Aldebaran is the alpha star of Taurus. The red giant star is toward the lower left edge of the frame, a foreground star along the line-of-sight to the more [10]distant Hyades star cluster. [11]Otherwise too faint for your eye to see, the dark, dusty nebulae lie along the edge of the massive Perseus molecular cloud, with the striking reddish glow of NGC 1499, the California Nebula, at the upper right. Please take a short survey in aesthetics & astronomy: [12]Sonification Tomorrow's picture: a little like Mars __________________________________________________________________ [13]< | [14]Archive | [15]Submissions | [16]Index | [17]Search | [18]Calendar | [19]RSS | [20]Education | [21]About APOD | [22]Discuss | [23]> __________________________________________________________________ Authors & editors: [24]Robert Nemiroff ([25]MTU) & [26]Jerry Bonnell ([27]UMCP) NASA Official: Phillip Newman [28]Specific rights apply. [29]NASA Web Privacy Policy and Important Notices A service of: [30]ASD at [31]NASA / [32]GSFC & [33]Michigan Tech. U. References 1. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html 2. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/image/2103/2021_03_02_Mars_Taurus_1800px.jpg 3. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html#srapply 4. http://www.astronom.cz/horalek/?page_id=20 5. https://www.slu.cz/phys/en/ 6. https://earthsky.org/tonight/closest-mars-pleiades-conjunction-until-2038 7. https://www.nasa.gov/perseverance 8. https://www.astronom.cz/horalek/?p=22403 9. http://stars.astro.illinois.edu/sow/aldebaran.html 10. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap200122.html 11. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap131122.html 12. https://www.surveymonkey.com/r/chandrasonify 13. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210303.html 14. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/archivepix.html 15. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/apsubmit2015.html 16. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/aptree.html 17. https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/cgi-bin/apod/apod_search 18. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/calendar/allyears.html 19. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod.rss 20. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/edlinks.html 21. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html 22. http://asterisk.apod.com/discuss_apod.php?date=210304 23. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/ap210305.html 24. http://www.phy.mtu.edu/faculty/Nemiroff.html 25. http://www.phy.mtu.edu/ 26. https://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/htmltest/jbonnell/www/bonnell.html 27. http://www.astro.umd.edu/ 28. https://apod.nasa.gov/apod/lib/about_apod.html#srapply 29. https://www.nasa.gov/about/highlights/HP_Privacy.html 30. https://astrophysics.gsfc.nasa.gov/ 31. https://www.nasa.gov/ 32. https://www.nasa.gov/centers/goddard/ 33. http://www.mtu.edu/