Slashdot Mirror
Mars at Opposition - Earth at Transitition
On August 27th, Mars will be closer to Earth than in all of recorded history. The event is a rare display of orbital events in the cosmic clockwork of space. It is the chance of a lifetime for everyone to go out and see Mars and never before, and never again in our lifetimes!
The event is much more than just an opposition though because Martian oppositions occur about every 25 months.
What makes this opposition so special? This year, the Mars opposition occurs at the same time that Mars is at perihelion, which means Mars, in its orbit, is closest to the Sun and near when Earth is at aphelion (farthest point from Sun.)
At 5:51 a.m. EDT on the night of August 27, 2003, Mars will be within 34,646,418 miles (55,758,006 km) of Earth. To compare this to an earlier opposition: in 2001 when Mars was last at opposition, the red planet was more than 41 million miles (67 million km) from Earth. The most recent perihelion and opposition took place in September 1988 when Mars passed within 36.5 million miles (58.7 million km) of Earth.
When will Mars be this close to Earth again? The next, closer approach will occur on August 28, 2287 when Mars will be 34.62 million miles (55.69 million km) away. But we won't be around for that one, so you don't want to miss this close approach!
When and Where to see Mars - Best viewing is about midnight in the southern sky. One good way to find more precise viewing of Mars as well as identifying the various features, is using Xephem. We put together some tables which include local sunset times and Mars rising times for August 27th for various locations in the US, Europe, Middle East etc...
Currently Mars is moving the opposite direction from all the other planets. While the other plenets appear to be moving towards the east over time, Mars is displaying retrograde motion and moving westward.
Because Mars is so small it's difficult to see details most of the time or in small telescopes. Since Mars is going to be so much closer than usual, even a 4 inch telescope will show details not normally visible. There are also various filters you can use to enhance observing. Mars through a Telescope: Getting the Most from the Red Planet covers what equipment to use and what specific features to look for on Mars.
Although one night has been advertised as "the night" when Mars will be closest, the red planet will appear large and bright for the next few months. Mars will also be changing seasons and that means you will be able to spot changes in surface features over time. It's summer in the southern hemisphere of Mars and the south polar cap is melting rather quickly. If you observe over a period of days you will be able to see the terrain underneath the ice appear.
Go out and enjoy this cosmic show, but you needn't worry about any unexpected cosmic collisions, Mars Will Not Kill You."
Finally I will be able to peer into craters that house the martians. I hope they're as attactive as Amy of Futurama...
I, for one, welcome our new Martian overlords.
or something...
I could care less, but not without a lobotomy
How many people can say they have an astronaut friend ?
This special event takes place because of the specific positions of Mars and Earth in their orbits.
I love sentences like that. Mars will be the closest to Earth it's ever been, because Mars will be the closest to Earth it's ever been!
It's a once 4000000000000000000000xlifetimes experiance.
I hear they gonna deep-fry it in Scotland.
10bux and free beer, that most people vote for the face and pyramids. I want to see a martian looking back at me through his telescope.
For an interesting read on the Face on Mars, I recommend the books by Graham Hancock. He doesn't actually say in his book that aliens built it or make any wild assumptions/conclusions but he does investigate it in a professional manner built solely on science and photographs and correspondence with reliable people working in NASA.
Another blackout would be nice about now.
Just to clear something up in the post, retrograde motion won't affect viewing at all. In fact, the only way someone could detect retrograde motion would be to take very precise measurements over a few days. It's not as if mars or any other planet moves opposite the stars on any given night. But this is slashdot, you all knew that.
Quid festinatio swallonis est aetherfuga inonusti?
Africus aut Europaeus?
Crap, that means I have to junk the giant ski jump and space craft I've been building in the backyard. At least I had the satisfaction of putting together my list of who gets to go and who gets to stay behind.
Richard Hoagland's followers spamming scientists to "please focus on the Cydonia area."
1. No sig. 2. ???? 3. Profit!!!
On a whim, I pointed my cheap 2 megapixel/no optical zoom digital camera towards Mars, and I was astonished to find that I could actually make out the disc of the planet. I'm hoping I can pay off my layaway for a 3MP/10x optical camera before Mars gets too far away.
I bet that won't stop the wackos getting worked up into a lather. After all, astrologers and their ilk have never let facts, figures or even reality get in the way before now, so it's doubtful they'll start any time soon.
If you don't believe it, fair enough but that's just makes even more reason to photograph the area again to settle it once and for all.
Martians are here and its time for some Independence Day stuff!!!! Lets have a look at the one eyed, long eared martians(from now on, people will get to know how the real martians look).
If your eyesight is good you can see this..
"You lied to me! There is a Swansea!"
Yeah well, it doesn't work just substituting "Mars" for "Moon". Mars doesn't orbit Earth, for one thing.
...but space has a terrible secret, my friend!!1!
Do you have stairs in your house?
One god, one market, one truth, one consumer.
This approach will be only 12,000 miles closer than one in 1924.
It's nice to see people taking an interest, but c'mon...Viking took better pictures.
Mix the failings of Usenet with the shortcomings of the World Wide Web and the result is slashdot.
Let's see now. Ogilvy states that "The chances of anything coming from Mars are a million to one..."
...
... don't try to open them! :)
Terry Pratchett would have us believe (in Guards! Guards!) that events where the chance of something happening are EXACTLY a million to one, are guaranteed to happen ("It's a million to one chance, but it might just work!")
Put those two together and
If you see any large weird cylinders lying on the ground which look to be really, really hot
One poster mentioned software for star gazing. Go with kstars by Jason Harris et al. Cool graphics, neat features, and the next version will control your telescope for you (if your telescope supports this, of course, unless your computer has SkyNet support). Part of the KDE desktop.
What fooling around with telescopes has taught me is how unbelievably limited our general education is. Consider yourself well educated? Well then. Go out and look up at the Moon tonight -- you've seen it hundreds, thousands of times, right? Now name the features. Which is the Sea of Tranquility? Where is Tycho (now that is really easy)? Even worse are the stars: Yes, you can find the Polar Star (Australians and Neu Zealanders are excused), but then? Name ten stars, any ten stars.
If you are anything like me, you know the different classes of Quake II monsters better than the Moon. Somewhere, somehow, that bothers me; but then maybe I've just been staying up too late at night...
For those of you who viewed the last good opposition a few years back, you may remember the dust storms that kicked up and obscured just about all surface features. The dust storms are all too common this time of 'year' on Mars, but they seem to be holding off. I got a great view of Syrtis Major and the southern polar cap last week.
Of course, after you drag the scope outside and view Mars, point that thing a little further north and west and catch Uranus and Neptune too! (Ok, hold the jokes about our seventh planet.)
Everyone will start to cheer when you put on your sailin' shoes.
They did photograph it again, several years ago. It's a series of mountains, the Face was created because of the shadows. Once they went over it again, it was just another bunch of mountains.
Didn't Terry Pratchett already write about that strange red light being another "planet" on a collision with "Earth"? Now that would be a spectacle to witness...
"We can confirm that Debian does *not* ship the version with the trojan horse. Our version predates it." [CA-2002-28]
Just to be a pedant:
The true gravity of the situation is much less benign.
This means it's worse than it seems, kind of like a double negative. Less benign = more malignant...
But view of Mars really is cool right now, I've been shooting it with a friends 8" telescope and getting some great photos.
I stole this sig from a more creative user.
Sometimes I think the surest sign that intelligent life exists elsewhere in the universe is that none of it has tried to contact us.
crunching sound you hear is not of earth and mars colliding, its the sound of a server crying for mercy from a slashdotting.
Bush is on fire and its not good for my lungs.
"NASA will be inviting the public to help decide what areas on the red planet to photograph."
Why? NASA asking the public for advice about planetary exploration is like, well, Nerds asking Slashdot for relationship advice.
How many photographs will be enough?
http://www.msss.com/education/edprog.html
The probablility of Martians being able to make it across Route 1 to lay waste to Princeton is exactly zero.
Oh, come on. Mars is in opposition every couple of years. Does anyone think it will look THAT much bigger and brighter subtending 25.1 seconds this year than it did in Jun 2001 subtending 20.5 seconds?
And if you do care about sitting in the front row of the theatre instead of two rows back, well, Mars is in opposition near the point where the two orbits are closest every 15 or 16 years or so. In August of 1971 it subtended 24.8 seconds of arc.
This once-in-60000-years or whatever is a silly technicality. There will be one magic bit of time lasting--how long?--when it will set the Guinness record for closest approach in umpty-thousand years but your view of it will depend a lot more on the weather and the local street lighting and whether your neighbor's tree is in the way.
It's a great time to look up and see Mars looking so nice bright and red. Or, at least, distinctly orangish to a middle-aged eyeball who can barely detect a difference in color between Vega and Arcturus. And if you have any kind of telescope, you really should run out to your nearest schoolyard and point it at that bright orangy star in the southeast.
But almost equally good opportunities occur every couple of years.
"Have you heard/About the stars/Next July we collide with Mars/Well, did you evah?/What a swell party this is!"--Cole Porter
"How to Do Nothing," kids activities, back in print!
Given the state of science and biology in particular. It is entirely possible and perhaps even likely that if the human race is not extinct by then , a large number of us will still be alive. If I live to 50 I will see 500. That is why I live so recklessly.
Speculation...
Of course Mars smacking with the Earth is hard to imagine but what if something were to collide with Mars while it is so close to the Earth? Isn't it possible that something colliding with Mars large enough could send fragments of Mars close to Earth? What if Mars was destroyed while it is so close? Has anyone considered these possibilities?
Please seriously consider the possibilities prior to posting your mocking response or flame. Thanks.
All funny comments aside, it's quite a magical experience to just look up in the sky and see the Red Planet shining there. Bathed in marslight, it's a nice reminder of just how our lives and civilization itself pales into insignificance when compared with the slow but steady motions of the heavenly skies. Beautiful moment, so take off 5 minutes every night or so to stand outside and look upwards towards the stars. Nothing like it. By the way, I saw a shooting star a few days ago in the northwest sky, anyone know what's up with that?
No, this issue will never be "settled once and for all". The people who believe in the Face on Mars already believe it against photographic evidence, and they do not trust NASA. So why should they believe more proof from the "worldwide scientific conspiracy"?
Things like the Face cult are just the background noise we pay for having the ability to dream and to believe.
The Mongrel Dogs Who Teach
I noticed that too. It appears that slashdot has also decided to make it impossible to email an editor. You have to know their super sekret email address.
Mea navis aericumbens anguillis abundat
Mars would have to be about 5 feet away for me to spot it with all the artificle light where I live in Tokyo.
When asked where I want to go for my vacation coming up, all I can say is, "Somewhere away from the city where I can see the night sky."
It may make you feel better by posting this whether for amusement value alone or to pat your back if you're a liberal, but even the Vatican has an observatory.
9 a.htm
http://clavius.as.arizona.edu/vo/
From the above link, "The Vatican Observatory, one of the oldest astronomical research institutions in the world, has its headquarters at the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo, Italy, outside Rome. Its dependent research center, the Vatican Observatory Research Group (VORG), is hosted by Steward Observatory at the University of Arizona, Tucson, USA."
Info about the Vatican Observatory
http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/1530
Silly goose! It said in the synopsis that gravity from Mars cannot affect us on Earth. But you knew that, right? ;)
:P
I like your style of humor, buddy
... +5 Funny
Real Daleks don't climb stairs - they level the building.
. . . SIT DOWN.
:)
Carmack is cool, but he ain't an astronaut . . . yet.
i am protected
We had a 7.2 earthquake here in southern New Zealand four days ago -- I need no further proof that mars is trying to kill us all.
http://www.nzherald.co.nz/storydisplay.cfm?stor
I don't care if it's overhyped or not, it's enough for me to get up off my behind and get out and enjoy the world.
/. I actually take note. That Leonid shower I got inspired at 10:30 at night rang up my friends and we got together, drove for an hour and a bit into the country and were about the only people in the southern hemisphere to see the damn things due to a VERY localised and short-lived break in the clouds. It was magical and everybody present will never forget it.
I'm privileged enough to come from a 1st world country where it is still possible to escape the city lights and see the stars properly - which is something I reckon the vast majority of slashdotters would not have experienced.
When I read about a celestial event on
The next meteor shower I went to the same place and, well, didn't see anything. But that didn't matter, because the majority of my friends were there for the leonid shower and were gaining an interest in just being outdoors and seeing the stars.
This time around, sure, it may just be a red dot in the sky, but it's the biggest this dot has been for the last 73 000 years, and well, sometimes that's just the little motivation we need to be convinced to leave our comfortable labs for an evening which will be enjoyed by all present. Except for my friend who, while watching the Matrix Reloaded, was just adding some finishing touches to his program on his laptop during the opening action scene. He'll spoil my night vision.
So in conclusion, I for one am happy for this hype and will be taking my $2 telescope out with me for a night to remember.
Why does Mars always have to keep opposing us? Can't we all just get along?
Well I'd really like to see if that face carved out the mountain is Elvis or not!
Of course there's always the chance that these photographs are doctored, but I doubt that it would have taken NASA this long to initiate some sort of coverup concerning the martians.
(Besides, allowing people to believe in things that seem outright ludicrous to others does more than any organised conspiracy could accomplish).
Maybe I'm overly cynical about it. The face on Mars is a freaky photo if you take it at... well... face value, but not necessarily signifigant.
Of course I'm sure everyone would like to believe in a link between martian pyramids and Giza, because that's still one of our big unsolved mysteries with results based only on hypothesis' (unless something major slipped completely by my geek radar).
Every 90 seconds, somewhere in the world, a woman is gving birth.
She must be found, and stopped.
...at a packing store mid last week man (at counter): Its really hot out there today. woman (customer): Yes, it really is! man: I heard that its because Mars is so close to Earth these days woman: oh, really? man: yeah, you know, because the sky...its really big... witness could bear to hear no more at this point.
Don't trust Anonymous Coward.
He is malfunctioning.
as IIRC Asimov put it.
I Know where the fruitcakes are getting this -Mars'o'collision stuff from. Just take a look at the details provided with the link.
s it ion01.html
http://starryskies.com/The_sky/events/mars/oppo
But are we going to die because we will collide with Mars or because the Sun at THAT moment is just about 4 earth diameters away ?
I remember on some chat show they were talking to one of the guys who believed the face was there. When shown the new picture he claimed that NASA had bombed the site to hide the fact that aliens existed.
Don't you mean more benign? Or is mars' gravity going to suck the blood up from my feet?
Oh, and that's a very bad pun.
Wah!
If something struck Mars and some material was ejected into space the probability of that material hitting Earth is incredibly small. It does happen as evidenced by the small amounts of Mars rock we have found in Antarctica.
I would not need to calculate the probability given the enormous odds AGAINST such an event occuring. Consider the variables:
- The distance from Earth to Mars. Mars is at perihelion (closest distance to the sun in its orbit) and Earth is at aphelion (farthest distance from sun in its orbit). The distance is still 54 million KM! MILLIONS of Km away!
- The size of whatever material ejected from Mars. Even if some material were ejected, it would most likely be very small and as such either fall back to Mars or enter temporary orbit around the planet. The size of the object that would be required to produce such an event would already be visible to astronomers. Remember comet Shoemaker-Levy? We knews several weeks in advance that the comet was going to strike Jupiter.
These are the first things that popped into my head. You have to realize the incredible distances involved. Even though Mars and Earth are at their closest approaches in 50,000 years, it still amounts to peanuts, astronomically. It would be like saying that you and I are at our closest approach when I drove to work this morning and you were in New York and I was in Los Angeles.
That's possibly one of the dumbest things I've heard outside of a dragonball z forum.
Every 90 seconds, somewhere in the world, a woman is gving birth.
She must be found, and stopped.
Heretic! Burn him!
"Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
The reason it's better for an object to be as high above the horizon as possible is to avoid the extra layers of air the light has to go through before entering your telescope. Less air means a better chance of getting a stable image.
"NASA isn't going to be worrying about Mars colliding with Earth ..." but perhaps NASA should worry about *foam* flying off Mars...
We try to do the community outreach stuff. We hold observings at schools and stuff.
Everyone that has approached us seems to think that they must view Mars on the 27th...as if it's gonna be so much closer than on the 28th or Sept, etc... It's really pushing the limits of our very good natured "P.R." guy.
But it did look nice the other night...much better than last year.
A good condom is all that will protect you from the martians. Make it a trojan.
...if i could actually SEE Mars when i go outside.. grrrr
If Google really cared they would fix Android Chrome to reflow text, instead of discriminating
Since no orbit is perfect, everything eventually spirals into a collision or escapes its orbit (moon gets an inch or so further from us every year). Anyone know which planets will eventually collide with the sun and which ones will escape (Pluto, I think)? Along those lines some planets could theoretically collide as they change their relative distances from the sun. I'm right at least in theory aren't I?
When all of your wishes have been granted, many of your dreams will be destroyed - Marilyn Manson
This once-in-60000-years or whatever is a silly technicality.
So was the clock rolling over to 2000 three years back. Even though it was an artifact of the dating system, and didn't actually signify a millenium in that system, people were still out partying. We like marking biggests, bests, and firsts.
I think anything that gets people looking up at the sky is a good thing. Maybe a sense of wonder needs a kick-start in some people. If the hype surrounding this particular opposition convinces people to look up and actually see the heavens for once, in their majesty and awesome beauty, then the superlatives getting thrown around don't bother me.
You obviously don't need the help. But please don't go all sour on those who do.
Even though Mars will subtend a visually undetectably larger arc, I'm still going to be up on the roof in the boonies with my wimpy little 4" refracting 'scope to take a look at the polar caps. And I'll feel that thrill of hitting the focus just right and resolving a disc out of a distant point of light. I want other people, people who don't care about science enough to understand why any other opposition would work just as well, to know what that feels like, too. The mathematical difference between a few arc-seconds may be minute, but the emotional difference is huge.
-Carolyn
Like Daddy always said: if you can't dazzle 'em with brilliance, baffle 'em with bullshit.
Took a look with my spotter scope (zooms from 15x to 45x). Not bad-- couldn't see much other than that it's definitely round. It's about the size of a pinhead at 45x.
Intellectual Property is a monopolistic, selfish, and defective concept. It is "tyranny over the mind of man"
Whoever the cuntbag that wrote that article was, he should have known that the situtation is "much less MALIGNANT", not "much less BENIGN". Fucking cunt.
Yeah! All they would have to do is doctor the picture. No bombs needed.
How ya like dat?
This seems like a golden opportunity if we as a collective planet had our $hit together and wanted to launch a manned mission to Mars. This is the single point in human history when we could most benefit (in travel time reduction) from launching a mission or at least a probe of some sort. Granted, the difference between the proximity of Mars now and another point of opposition may only vary by 1% or so, but that 1% distance reduction would allow for more gear/less fuel/less travel time.
Tranisititititition?
Optimal launch time for a mars mission would be the speed of the rocket divided by the distance between us and mars. Take that number and make it that number of days AGO.
You wouldn't want to launch for mars NOW, it'll be moving AWAY by the time you get to it. You want to launch for mars three months AGO so you're there NOW. When it's closest.
Less fuel on the way out, or something.
Sounds more like the handiwork of Ming the Merciless.
--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.
A couple of nights ago, I broke out the 8" SCT to look at Mars. After reading about this being its closest, and brightest, approach in a long, long, time, I figured there might be a few details visible.
Boy, was I wrong. It was big. It was really stinking bright (destroyed my night adaptation). It was a big, bright, orange/red blob. No details. There might have been a slight bit that was darker than the rest. That was it.
Now, granted, I don't spend much time viewing the planets. Jupiter and its moons, and the rings of Saturn are usually worth a few minutes each. I usually spend my time on the "deep-space" objects. I'm certainly no stranger to spending lots of time finding minute details. But, Mars has never really been worth bothering with, and I can't say this has changed my opinion.
Ah, well. It was probably covered by a giant dust storm or some such thing. What do I know. Such is life.
what Richard Hoagland has to say about it.
Probably thinks the neo-Nazi conspiracy to destroy us all and fly off to Mars in the UFOs will come to fruition this year.
Actually, I hope he's right. I'd love to see the ruling elite leave Earth forever - although I'd prefer in body bags.
(For those of you who don't know who he is, think "Art Bell permanent guest".)
Richard Steven Hack - This sig is TOO GODDAMN SHORT TO DO ANYTHING USEFUL WITH! MORONS!
I see, you haven't got an astronaut friend.
Oppositition spellelled thithis wayayay
inin the tititle...
sighigh.
First.. the site says like 5:30AM on aug 27.. but other people are saying around midnight.. is that midnight 27 or 28? (like its tue aug 26, 11:59pm, then it switches over to wed aug 27, 12:00.. this midnight? or the midnight where 27 turns to 28?)
Also, i'm thinking of picking up a sub $100 telescope tomorrow. I'll be at the local mall to pick up my reserved copy of LoTR TTT, and theres a walmart there.. Checked walmart.com and they have 2 sub $100 telescopes:
Tasco Galaxsee 60 x 675 Telescope - $67.43
Fits 1.25-inch interchangeable eyepieces, 3x Barlow lens, diagonal eyepiece, erecting eyepiece and accessory tray
Telestar NG-60 Telescope by Meade - $74.24
Exciting single arum telescope design features a standard-equipment computer controller with a wide variety of features
Either of them sound good?
My father used to have 2 really nice telescopes (refractive and reflective).. but i broke them when I was like 4 =P
Your telescope is too big for the local viewing conditions. Seriously - a 5-6" scope is pretty much as large as you want to go for Mars, unless you're somewhere with extremely steady air. I get great views from a 3.5" scope, with a fair amount of detail.
;)
If you're still interested, try masking off the outer part of the aperture (cut a 4" circular hole in some cardboard). You want to be looking through a hole that's smaller than the size of a single cell of disturbed air in the path. Otherwise your telescope is gathering light that's been refracted by air in too many paths, and you get a smear. You don't need all that aperture to see detail anyway, because the thing is so frigging bright.
The other thing is that you'll see more detail if you watch for a few minutes, and if you do it for a few nights. Gotta train the brain for this one, even though you've got the skills for deep sky stuff. I could tell you that it's worth it, but that's subjective. But if you own a 8" SCT in the first place, it probably is.
Huh. I'll give it a shot. It'd be shame to miss the opportunity.
No. This is bullshit.
The earth is in the center of the universe (and it's flat). Orbits are perfect circles, that means that the distance it's the same (by definition of circle).
If scientifical evidences are against this, it means that science is wrong.
I don't want to start any blasphemous rumors but I think that God's got a sick sense of humor. DM
Ok... let me clear this fear of Mars' current position. (Not that anyone will read this) I have no idea how the apocolyptic school of thought that Mars is going to crash into Earth originated. There is another school of thought which states that planetary motion amd numerous other astronomic events are due to electromagnetism in addition to gravity. This, therefore means, that since Earth is directly between Mars and the sun, it would, under this theory, experience abnormal ionization and magnetic forces, possibly changing weather patterns. The earthquake thing is highly unlikely. Nevertheless, this school of thought is not without logic, and by association, neither is the associated fear of strange weather patterns. The chances of Mars crashing into Earth or some other appoliptic emergency occuring are near impossible and would require some other persuasion than said astronomical event. The point is, besides informing some of you, that people are not crazy for believing such things as long as those beliefs are well-founded.
I applaud you and offer to buy you a new, custom-made tin-foil hat.
The World's Worst Webcomic!
Are you CRAZY?! You can't have my hat size! Don't you know the kind of information that you can get with someone's hat size?!
yes; the size of your head.
The World's Worst Webcomic!