• Mars is fainter now than it was a few months ago, but it's still bright and will be prominent in our sky for some months to come. The red planet Mars reaches what astronomers call eastern quadrature on June 7, at 9 p.m. Central Daylight Time (June 8 at 2 UTC).
• What does this mean? Just that Mars now resides 90 degrees east of the sun - half a 180-degree sky dome away. Or you could say that Mars is now one-quarter of a 360-degree circle from the sun.
• Gallery: Venus transit June 5-6, 2012
• Think of it this way. The sun reaches its highest point in the sky at midday (noon), right? Mars is half a sky dome away (90 degrees from the

sun), rising in the east when the sun is highest. If every day were divided into 12 hours of daylight and 12 hours of darkness - as would be the case if we lived on a world that were not tilted on its axis - Mars would be highest in the sky around sunset. Earth does tilt, and the seasons do change, and the lengths of daylight and darkness vary throughout the year. That's why, right now, Mars at eastern quadrature is highest point in the sky late in the day for us in the Northern Hemisphere - but not exactly at sunset because our daylight hours aren't exactly 12 hours long.
• It's nearly summer for us in the Northern Hemisphere, and our days are getting longer. By the time darkness falls at our northerly latitudes, it'll be well past six hours

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