Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Close Encounters Of The Mars Kind

Posted by timothy on from the bask-in-its-warlike-glow dept.

Lab_rat0 writes "Never again in our lifetimes will the Red Planet be so spectacular! This month and next, Earth is catching up with Mars, an encounter that will culminate in the closest approach between the two planets in recorded history. This article at EliteGeek has more details. According to Agg over at OCAU, this is probably the reason for all the Mars probes launched over the last few months."

2 of 153 comments (clear)

  1. Obligatory Zubrin post... by bc90021 · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Since Mars is so close, it's a shame that more people haven't read "The Case for Mars" (see here, and no, I am not affiliated in any way), as now would be a very good time to put some of the principlesinto practise and land someone on Mars!

    --
    libertarianswag.com
  2. Don't get TOO excited... by JayBlalock · · Score: 5, Interesting

    Here's the Snopes entry on it. Essentially, while it's technically true that this is the closest pass in 60,000 years or so, to most observers there won't be any appreciable difference between this pass and the semi-close passes it makes every 15 years or so. The interest lies mainly in how this makes it more easy to launch probes. (and note the similarity in wording between the Snopes version and the post. Hmmm...)

    --
    Bush: He's Liberal in all the wrong ways.