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Crystal Clear Mars

Posted by timothy on from the on-a-clear-night-you-can-see-canals dept.

Mutant writes: "BBC News has a story on the latest photos of Mars from Hubble. Because Mars is at one of it's closest positions to Earth, the Hubble has been able to take some beautiful snaps of the red planet, clearly showing "water-ice clouds", dust storms, and more. I can't wait until 2003 when Mars and Earth come closer than they will for the next 300 years."

3 of 7 comments (clear)

  1. High res pictures? by RevRigel · · Score: 2
    The largest image available appears to be at the Space Telescope Science Institute's web page, here.
    If you click around on that site you can find links to greyscale images representing filtering at different wavelengths, as well as a recent history of Mars's close encounters.

    [goes outside to look at Mars in the telescope]

  2. This is a serious blow to the illuminati. by jerkface · · Score: 2
    There was a time when the illuminati could plan to imminentize the eschaton in complete secrecy. They used Mars as a safe place from which to base their secret operations. They even found the time to build huge faces and pyramids. I expect them to find a new base, probably on the planet located directly opposite the sun (it's rarely been detected because the sun is always blocking our view of it).

    Oh, and, fifth post.

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  3. Distances by Sygiinu · · Score: 2
    "closer than they will for the next 300 years."

    According to "Philip's Guide to Stars and Planets" by Patrick Moore (ISBN 0-540-07235-4), the Earth and Mars will be even closer in 2005 than in 2003:

    on Aug 28th 2003 minimum distance will be 56 million km.

    on Nov 7th 2005 minimum distance will be 43 million km.