Tomorrow Saturday night, the gibbous moon appears in close proximity to the the bright red planet Mars. The two are in the zodiacal constellation Gemini. Mars has lost a lot of its brilliance from just a few months ago. Mars is getting farther away from us, over 100,000 miles away now and that distance is growing, thus it is getting dimmer.

Mars and the Moon are a nice looking assembly. You'll have no trouble noticing Mars with its reddish glow. Not far away are the two brightest stars in Gemini, Pollux and Castor. Pollux is the closest to the moon and the brighter of the two.

Even though these two bright stars seem close together, they are not. Pollux is the closst to us, at 34 light years away. Castor is a good deal farther away, 51 light years. It is easy to assume these two are close to each other, as they dominate the constellation and much of that portion of the sky. In mythology, the two are twins.