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Close Encounters Of The Mars Kind
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."
Speak for yourself. I plan to live to at least 150,000 years of age. I'm sure I'll see better.
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
In case the site (or routes to the site) get slashdotted, here is a mirror to the link.
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.
The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287.
Due to the way Jupiter's gravity tugs on Mars and perturbs its
orbit, astronomers can only be certain that Mars has not come this close to
Earth in the last 5,000 years but it may be as long as 60,000 years.
The encounter will culminate on August 27th when Mars comes to within 34,649,589
miles and will be (next to the moon) the brightest object in the night sky.
It will attain a magnitude of -2.9 and will appear 25.11 arc seconds wide.
At a modest 75-power magnification, Mars will look as large as the full moon to
the naked eye.
Mars will be easy to spot. At the beginning of August, Mars will rise in the east at 10 p.m. and reach its azimuth at about 3 a.m.
But by the end of August when the two planets are closest,
Mars will rise at nightfall and reach its highest point in the sky at 12:30 a.m.
That's pretty convenient when it comes to seeing something that no human has
seen in recorded history.
So, mark your calendar at the beginning of August to see Mars grow
progressively brighter and brighter throughout the month.
Why go to Mars when you've got Rekall?
>... and about those lobotomies, statistics show that it's safer to use Rekall than to travel to the red planet itself.
I'm delightfully interested in that Agent-package... Hmm...
What's so bad about being lazy? What if there was a war and nobody showed up?
Launching a mission on the date of closest approach would be poor timing. To take advantage of this, missions would need to be launched prior to that date (how long before can be figured out, but I don't know the data to do so). If you launch on the day when Mars and Earth are closest, you'll immediately begin chasing Mars and the trip will not be optimal. If instead you launch before hand, you're travelling towards mars while it's travelling towards you. The rate of movement may be so minimal that it won't make a difference, but I don't know.
Get your affairs in order, the end is near! This would be the perfect time for the Zhti Ti Kofft, as the Martians call themselves, to invade and conquer.
The Uncoveror: It's the real news.
Space.com
abc.net.au
Telescopes-Astronomy.com - lots of details about suitable telescopes etc.
As an aside, about an earlier event fromThe Universe Today:
A rare astronomical event will occur in May 1999- Mars will be the closest it ever gets, only 52.8 million miles. In addition, the Red Planet is in opposition, which means its face is completely lit up by the Sun. Amateur astronomers will be able to see normally obscure features like the polar caps and canyons.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
For global views of Mars check here, however at this time of year (August) Mars is enveloped in planet wide dust storms, so the view is going to be obfuscated by all that red grit...if you want to check out before and during storm pics then click here.
many more pics available from the Mars Global Surveyor: Mars Orbiter Camera (MOC)here.
Do you need a website upgrade?
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.
But it's NOT the best time to send something to Mars. It would have been best to launch something about a year and a half ago, when mars and earth were moving towards each other, and have the probe REACH Mars when it starts getting farther away.
"Sometimes, I think Trent just needs a cup of hot chocolate and a blankie." -Tori Amos on Nine Inch Nails
Users of Celestia (the stunning open-source galaxy simulator) can verify this and a whole lot of other space events as Mars is, at August 27, 0.373 AU from Earth. When I'm typing this, Mars seems to be 0.410 AU from Earth.
1 AU = 149,597,870.691 km
0.373 AU = 55800005 km
0.410 AU = 61335126 km
The values seem to be slightly off (by around 1%) when compared to the article's shortest distance, from the approximated planetary orbits.
Beware: In C++, your friends can see your privates!
It's fairly big already - about 20 arcseconds I should think - and I've taken a look a few times already the past few days (in my 10" F5 reflector, 4mm ultrawide plossl eyepiece, magnification about 300x). Why look now before opposition? Because it has already passed it's maximum declination in mid-to-late July, even then at about only 25 degrees above the horison where I am, and is now getting lower each night. Even at maximum elevation it was so low that atmospheric distortion mucks up the image quite badly.
In fact, although this is supposed to be the closest opposition for maybe the past 60,000 years, the low elevation means it's not really such a great observation opportunity for astronomers in the northern hemisphere. I was just about able to make out the southern polar cap and some blurred greyish surface features in the southern hemisphere.
If you live further South though, there should be some really spectacular views with Mars almost overhead. And it's so bright that you don't need a large telescope - just a good one. And an equatorial mount is a must, because the damn thing moves so fast.
there's always the astronomy pic of the day
And for those of us with OSX, there's a macosxhints article that helps you rotate your desktop pic with the APotD
When will I end this grieving ? When will my future begin ?
But when are they going to probe Uranus?
Scientists renamed that planet in the year 2354 to end that old joke once and for all. It's now known as Urectum.
"Afer all, who needs courage when you have a gun?"
-Prof Hubert Farnsworth
MARS 2003 Pictures
Every year, amateurs and their techniques are improving. This team of Germans, with their Astro-Physics 10" Maksutov-Cassegrain telescope are on the cutting edge of amateur astrophography.
Starry Night has released a nice little util that tracks the approach to mars. Its pretty neat.
Runs on osX and win.
http://www.starrynight.com/MarsEncounter/