A Rare Phenomenon?

Some time last week, I was on my way home at night when I happened to look up into the sky. That day happened to have a round moon, one of those few days of the month when the moon is bright and round and big.

Perhaps it was my imagination, but when I looked up at the moon, it was surrounded by an aura of dark shadow. It was a dark round shadow with the moon right in the middle, and the surrounding clouds outside the ring of the shadow. In other words, there was nothing else inside the shadow except for the moon, it was just a dark patch.

I confirmed what I saw when I pointed it out to him and he affirmed it. It was something quite out of the ordinary, as I have never seen anything like that before. No, it was not an eclipse either.

A few days later, I brought this up to my youngest brother, and he told me that there was a report going around about the moon and Mars being very close to each other that night. Perhaps that was what I saw, Mars. It was nothing special, but an astronomical phenomenon all the same, and very rare to see two planets so close together. Wonder when I would ever have the chance for another sighting like that?