The last days of July month in 2018 bring a double delight for astronomy lovers. On July 27th, India and many other countries will observe the longest total lunar eclipse of the century around midnight Indian Standard Time. Moon will be under Earth's shadow and totally eclipsed for one hour and 43 minutes. Days later another spectacular astronomical event is to thrill millions of people around the world. Mars, the red planet, will be closest to Earth since 2003 on July 31st. The Red Planet will be at its brightest since August 2003, when Mars was the closest to Earth in almost 60,000 years. Mars orbits the Sun at a larger distance than Earth. As the distance from the Sun increases, the orbital period increases, too. While Earth takes 365 days to go round the Sun, Mars takes 687 days.
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