Each Monday, I pick out North America's celestial highlights for the week ahead (which also apply to mid-northern latitudes in the northern hemisphere). Check my main feed for more in-depth articles on stargazing, astronomy, eclipses and more.
This week you can watch the full "Wolf Moon" rise to occult Mars. Then you can see the red planet at its biggest, brightest and best for over two years.
However, one of the planetary joys of this week will be seeing Venus and Saturn inch closer to each other each night this week before finally seeming almost to "kiss" on Saturday.
Here's everything you need to know about stargazing and astronomy this week:
Hours before a major astronomical event comes a more familiar one -- the rising of January's full moon, the "Wolf Moon." Get somewhere with a good view of the eastern horizon to watch it appear just after the sun has set in the west. It will look more prominent than usual and be a beautiful, muted orange. The best time to view it will be a few minutes after moonrise where you are, though exactly where will depend on your location.
Here comes one of the highlights of 2025 -- a bright planet, Mars, eclipsed for a few hours by a near-full 'Wolf Moon.' The action will take place high in the sky and be visible across North America, with the action taking place between 8:44 p.m. EST on Monday, Jan. 13 and ending at 00:52 a.m. EST on Tuesday, Jan. 14. However, where you are will determine what you see and when, with the event -- Mars disappearing (ingress) and then appearing again (egress) -- taking place for just over an hour. In-the-sky.org has a helpful map to help you plan your viewing.
The event will happen while the moon and Mars are close to the bright star Pollux in Gemini, with the other "twin" of Gemini, Castor, close by. At 34 and 51 light-years distant, these star systems are in the sun's neighborhood.
Remember October's comet Tsuchinshan-ATLAS? Today another comet, C/2024 G3 (ATLAS), makes its closest approach to the Earth. However, since it's in the summer constellation of Sagittarius, it's not going to be visible from the Northern Hemisphere.
This week, the fourth planet, Mars, is in opposition. It happens every 26 months as Earth passes the red planet on the inside, as both planets orbit the sun, making Mars appear to be at its biggest, brightest, and best. It will rise in the east during dusk and set in the west during dawn, so it's the perfect time to put a small telescope on the red planet to glimpse its redness and, if you're lucky, its polar ice caps. Mars will be visible at night until the end of November when it will sink into the glare of the sun.
The brightest star in the constellation Leo, "the lion," Regulus, is one of the four bright stars often closely visited by the moon. Tonight, the two will appear a couple of degrees from each other in the eastern sky, rising together -- Regulus first -- about four hours after sunset.
If you've been watching the western sky after sunset for the past few weeks, you'll have seen this coming. Saturn has been sinking and Venus rising, and tonight the inevitable result is a close conjunction of the two planets. They will appear a couple of degrees from each other in the west immediately after sunset and sink soon after, so the observing window will be short.