不要错过与火星的约会

NASA's diagram of Mars opposition shows the Sun, the Earth and Mars lining up every two years.

美国宇航局的火星对冲图显示，太阳、地球和火星每两年排成一排。

Stargazers perk up — Mars is getting big and bright the coming week, as the sun, Earth and Mars line up close to a new moon on the night of Oct. 13.

观星者们兴奋起来——火星在接下来的一周变得越来越大，越来越明亮，因为10月13日晚上，太阳、地球和火星排成一条直线，接近一颗新月。

The event that happens about every two years is called "opposition" in astronomy terms: the sun and Mars on opposite sides of Earth. From the earthling's perspective, according to NASA, Mars rises in the east just as the sun sets in the west, and would stay up in the sky the whole night, setting in the west just as the sun rises.

这种每两年发生一次的事件，在天文学中称为“对冲”：太阳和火星位于地球的两端。根据美国宇航局的说法，从地球的角度看，火星在东方升起，就像太阳在西方落下一样，它会在天空中停留一整夜，太阳升起时，它就在西方落下。

Because we're seeing the whole dayside of the red planet the whole week, it's going to be ideal for viewing, writes Mikhail Kreslavsky, assistant research planetary scientist at University of California, Santa Cruz, in an email to NPR.

加州大学圣克鲁兹分校的行星研究助理科学家米哈伊尔·克雷斯拉夫斯基在给美国国家公共电台的一封邮件中写道，因为我们整个星期都能看到这颗红色星球的白天，它将是理想的观测对象。

And because this year's opposition is also close to the new moon, Mars will shine brighter without moonlight hampering, he writes.

他写道，由于今年的“对冲”距离新月也很近，火星将在没有月光阻碍的情况下更加明亮。

Mars and Earth come nearest to each other in their orbits around the sun. That happened on Oct. 6. Therefore, Mars is pretty large in size.

火星和地球在它们绕太阳的轨道上是最接近的。这件事发生在10月6日。因此，火星的体积相当大。

"[Usually] for people who are amateur astronomers with a decent-sized telescope, Mars would still look like a dot," astronomer Derek Demeter told the podcast last week.

天文学家德里克·德米特上周告诉播客:“(通常)对于那些业余天文爱好者来说，如果他们使用的是尺寸合适的望远镜，火星看起来还是像个点。”

"Now we're getting really close to Mars, the apparent size has tripled almost [in the telescope]" said Demeter, who directs Seminole State College's planetarium.

塞米诺尔州立大学天文馆主任德墨特尔说:“现在我们真的很接近火星了，(在望远镜里)火星表面的大小几乎增加了两倍。”