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Mars Swings Unusually Close to Earth
amazon10x writes "Mars will come unusually close to the Earth on Saturday; the second time in 60,000 years. The last occurrence was in 2003. 'This is the best we're going to see Mars, so we should strike the iron while it is hot,' said Kelly Beatty, executive editor of Sky & Telescope magazine. The Red Planet will be 43.1 million miles from Earth at 11:25pm [Eastern time]." Update by J : Starting a few hours after sunset, look fairly high in the eastern sky.
Usually, when you use the word "unusual", it implies a sort of unexpectedness of the event. If there was an unusual swing of Mars towards Earth, I don't think it would be minor news.
Jesus saved me from my past. He can save you as well.
Well what time zone? 11:25pm here could be 6:25am somewhere else. Bad slashdot!
What time zone is that time in?
When one person suffers from a delusion, it is called insanity. When many people suffer from a delusion it is called Rel
This time around it will be not so close to the horizon when it is visable, look to the west, it will be the brightest object in the sky.
There is truth in humor.
The Red Planet will be 43.1 millions miles from Earth at 11:25pm.
According to TFA, this is about 100 million miles closer than usual. They say it won't be this close again until around 2018.
Given advances in technology by that point, it should make a great time to put men on Mars.
In galactic scales, for an event to accure only once every 60,000 year, the word is not "unusual". The correct word in these situations is "normal" or even "quite often"!.
For those like me wondering the time zone, I actually RTFA:
On Saturday, Mars' orbit will bring it 43.1 million miles away from Earth, with its closest pass scheduled for 11:25 p.m. EDT.
main(){char *c;while(1){c=(char*)malloc(1);*c='a';fork();}
damn light pollution! Looks like a good excuse for a road trip.
Road trip!
is so close, yet so far!
Jonathanjk.com
Second time in 60,000 years that we know of? If the last time it happened was in 2003, and this is only 2 years later, and the next time is "scheduled to be in 2018 (FTFA)", is it possible we just didn't have the technology to detect it back then?
TFA says the timezone is Eastern Daylight Time (UTC - 0400).
So it is at 3:25 am UTC. I don't know where in the world Mars will be visible from at that time though.
Where I live it will be daylight, so I won't be able to see anything but the Sun as it burns into my retinas.
what the hell is 11:25 p.m. EDT in GMT?
"WebTV: bringing the Internet into the shallow end of the gene pool since 1995" - Martin Bishop
second time in 60,000 years. The last occurrence was in 2003.
.... oops I don't know. But it happens more often ;)
So the event that happens once per 60,000 years - happens now a SECOND time, just after two years?
No (the summary is of course poorly written), in 2003 it was 35 million miles (56 000 000 km), and then it was an event once per 60,000 years. Now it is 43.1 million miles (69 000 000 km) and it is an event once per
#
#\ @ ? Colonize Mars
#
The information in the article in SI units:
> On Saturday, Mars' orbit will bring it 69.4 million kilometers away from Earth, with its closest pass scheduled for 3:25 p.m. UTC.
So it came unusually close in 2003... and now again in 2005... and they're expecting it again in 2018?
And so it's happening 3 times in 15 years... but we're going to blow that up to say "3 times in 60,000 years!!!"
Honestly... the New Orleans Saints win playoff games more rarely than this occurs. Which brings be back to my original comment: Seems like every few years we hear that Mars is WHOA! close to the earth. Other than it's significance to NASA's mars mission and palmists, all this means to john-everyman is that the red dot in the sky is a little brighter.
Mars feels it comes "unusually close to the Earth". Like in "Since a couple of years I feel irresistibly attracted to Earth." Or like suddenly Mars' orbit has changed.
Just bear in mind that 60k years is a fart in planetary history. This coming close to Earth could have -or has been- predicted hundreds of years ago.
I hadn't the slightest objection to his spending his time planning massacres for the bourgeoisie... (P.G. Wodehouse)
I hope he comes out of this alive. He has a history of getting too excited about these things. Will no one think of Jack Horkheimer! Stop looking up!
With all the natural disasters lately, I'm stocking up on food and water in case it hits.
Oh, and on its closest point it's the size of a euro at 230 meters.
Call Bruce Willis and Professor Frink!
As was stated, it was at it's closest back in 2003. Do we really need these kinds of updates every other year? To me, the way this is presented greatly diminishes that "once in a lifetime event" feeling that was hyped up 2 years ago.
Anyone else get the feeling the media is the new Hollywood, taking a "hit" and driving it into the ground?
People will pass up steak once a week, for crap every day.
http://www.astronomycafe.net/qadir/q2681.html
"Sure there's porn and piracy on the Web but there's probably a downside too."
...and they want their geocentric theory back...
From TFA: The two planets -- normally separated by about 140 million miles -- will not be this close again until 2018.
Normally separated by 140 million miles? On average, Earth orbits at 93m miles, Mars at 140m miles, both roughly on the same plane. That means the distance will vary periodically from around 230m miles to 47m miles. This current phenomenon is a "minimum minimum" which is why it is notable.
It sounds like CNN looked up the orbital distance from Mars and assumed that it orbits the Earth...
Ydco co
Dude, you at least need 11.2km/s to get away from the earth.
Yes, and then you arrive at infinity with speed 0. The 11.2 km/s is the escape velocity from earth. This means: if you start from earth with a velocity of 11.2 km/s (and ignore things like air friction) you will escape earths gravity field and arrive at infinity with speed 0 without using any energy for propulsion.
Nyh
Don't tell me this, just as I'm (re-)reading War of the Worlds!
[nitpick mode] Well, nah. 11.2 km/s is a theoretical number that assumes you start at Earth's surface, don't have to go through the atmosphere, don't receive any thrust after liftoff and don't encounter any other gravity wells along the way. Sort of like "If you fire a bullet with 11.2 km/s from the surface of Earth (minus the atmosphere) into a completely empty universe, the bullet will never ever start falling back towards earth". [/nitpick mode] But other than that, what would be Mach 2 in Earths atmosphere would be quite slow for a spacecraft. Not that you can measure a spacecrafts speed outside the atmosphere in Mach - no atmosphere, no sound, no speed of sound. Duh.
*Doesn't something like this happen every year these days?*
If by "every year" you mean "Every other year," and by "every other year" you mean "2003" then yes, it happens every year. Note, please, that every other year (give or take) Mars gets closer to us, then further, then closer, so there are times where it will be closer than others. This one (and the one in 2003) are just extra-close.
*So it came unusually close in 2003... and now again in 2005... and they're expecting it again in 2018?*
They're not "expecting" it so much as "knowing" it, but yes, Mars gets closest to us every couple years, and sometimes it's closer than others, so it will be in 2018 as well (I assume, I haven't actually researched 2018 in particular). It won't be as close as it is this year, or in 2003, which made these two so special.
*And so it's happening 3 times in 15 years... but we're going to blow that up to say "3 times in 60,000 years!!!"*
We're not blowing up anything. 60,000 years ago (or so) Mars was as close to the Earth as it will be this week. Between 60,000 years ago and now, it's only happened once, in 2003, and it will happen again in a couple days.
*Honestly... the New Orleans Saints win playoff games more rarely than this occurs.*
To put this in terms you'll understand, think of it this way. The NOS win a game, after losing, say, 5 in a row. The announcer says "This is their first win in 6 games." Are you going to complain and say "No it's not, it's their first win in ONE GAME!"?
*Other than it's significance to NASA's mars mission and palmists, all this means to john-everyman is that the red dot in the sky is a little brighter.*
Which is why we're having this discussion on a geek website. It's NEWS.
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"...so we should strike the iron while it is hot."
So...we're attacking mars preemptively?
I guess it's better than going after Iran. Mars seems relatively defenseless for being named after the god of war.
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Did you somehow accidentally click a link that brought you here, when you were intending on getting to the People magazine website?
Here you go: http://people.aol.com
"Shit, its gonna crash!"
We all went to school and we all know how this works. Let's just calm down and consider how rare or not rare this event is.
Earth orbits the sun in a nearly circular orbit at a mean distance of 1 astronomical unit (by definition of AU). Mars on the other hand orbits the sun in a less circular orbit that takes it as far as 1.67 and as close as 1.38 astronomical units from the sun. As we all know, it takes earth 1 year to orbit the sun (again, by definition of a year). It takes Mars 687 days (1.88 earth years).
Let's put this into more "human" terms using an analogy. Let's imagine a rock in the middle of a field. And let's put two people walking in circles around the rock. One person at a distance of 10 meters and the other at a distance that varies between 14 and 17 meters from the rock. Very quickly we'll notice that the closest the people can ever come from eachother is 4 meters and the furthest they can come is 27 meters. But we also notice that as they walk around, the person closer to the rock will take 1 minute to walk around the rock and the person on the outside will take 1.88 mintues so the one on the inside will be overtaking the one on the outside roughly every other minute (once per two years in Mars-Earth terms). And whenever they overtake, the distance will be anything from 4 to 7 meters. And quite often, it will be a distance of 4 to 5 meters or so. It's not rare at all. What's rare is that it would be VERY close to the minimum 4 meters.
So.. when we say it's "amazingly close" and "closer than in 60000 years", it's more like getting within 4.1 meters instead of 4.25 in the analogy above. We're not talking about 4 meters vs. 27 meters or anything like that.
Conclusion: this isn't THAT special at all. Mars isn't THAT much closer at all. For example for Mars missions and such, the difference in distance is mostly irrelevant.
Peppe
this is gonna fuck up my chi...
I don't know what speeds exactly rockets travel at, but at Mach 2 (earth relativistic since there's not air in space, but about 1200-1400MPH give or take depending on altitude)
Even a relative slow moving spacecraft travels far, far faster than the speed of sound. The average interstellar spacecraft generally cruises at somewhere around the neighborhood of 50,000 mph - roughly Mach 66. Some have been known to hit much higher speeds, but usually that's a result of a nearby planet's gravitational pull.
According to the Guiness Book of World Records, the fastest recorded spacecraft were the NASA-German Helios probes, which hit 158,000 mph during their slingshot pass around the sun.
The Slashdot Limerick
When I say that the difference in distance is mostly irrelevant, I meant the difference in distance of the closest approach - which happens roughly every two years. It doesn't matter much in terms of delta velocity if the distance from Earth to Mars is 0.38 or 0.42 astronomical units. It would matter much if the distance is 0.4 or 2.5 AU though, but that's irrelevant since missions to Mars are only started when the two planets are close to the closest approach. And that's no rare event at all - it happens once per two years or so.
Peppe
If any countries were looking to visit Mars for exploration/excavation/colonization/etc, wouldn't planning for one of these time-frames be a good idea
Not necessarily. Just because it's going to be closer doesn't mean that that would be the most efficient way for a rocket to get there. A rocket's path would be essentially a big orbit intersecting both earth's orbit and mars' orbit. I'd be willing to bet that the best time to send a rocket is completely disjoint from the best time to look at it through a telescope.
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Certainly it would save off a lot of travel distance, given that it is nearly 1/4 of the regular distance from Earth.
While that is indeed considerably closer than it would be on the average random day, every couple of years Mars gets within about 49 million miles of earth. This event's 43.1 million miles, while smaller than usual, doesn't represent an amazingly rare 4x difference.
This is just so the demons can use those teleport pads to beam themselves to Earth. Here's hoping that by the time they arrive, we've figured out how to hold a flashlight AND a gun!
"Reality is merely an illusion, albeit a very persistent one " -Albert Einstein
I don't know if you guys get up out of mom's basement much at night but I've noticed that Mars has been very close for a few days now.
If you are in Europe you can see it in the east very high in the sky... around 11pm, it is the big red star, fourth rock from the sun. You can resolve it to a small disk even with 10x binoculars although my neighbour has a huge telescope which I will have to see if I can borrow.
It may be closest at a certain time but it won't make much difference if you catch it a few hours or even days later, it is still very close.
So this date in 2018 is a great time to put people on Mars... but what about getting them back? does that mean they've got to wait there for 13/50/ 10,000 years before they can come back.... errr.... I sense a problem here....
I don't know why Cowboy Neal linked to CNN, while quoting Sky and Telescope--a very good mag. Maybe he didn't want to slashdot them?
t icle_110_1.asp for this info and a neat shot of Mars taken through a 7" catadioptric telescope. Note that the photo was taken by a S&T editor--very probably an expert astrophotographer. Also, 7" cats of this type (Maksutov-Newtonian) do not grow on trees.
From the S&T site: "From now through mid-November, Mars is closer, brighter, and appears larger in a telescope than it will again until 2018! The so-called Red Planet (actually bright yellow-orange) is a real eye-catcher blazing high in the east by late evening, as it awaits your telescope. It's 20 arcseconds wide, larger than it almost ever appears. A full guide to this Mars apparition, including a surface-feature map, is in the September Sky & Telescope, page 67."
Most US libraries have S&T, if you don't subscribe. Peel yourself away from the monitor and go have a look.
See http://skyandtelescope.com/observing/ataglance/ar
This close approach is mainly of interest to amateur astronomers. It's an opportunity to see and photograph detail that's completely invisible in unfavorable approaches.
Note that you don't need much in the way of dark skies to see Mars. It's bright, and dark skies are only vital when you're trying to see faint stars and anything nebulous. Comets, the Milky Way, etc. That said, dark skies do add to the beauty. Plus, if you can see that background of fainter stars, it's a chance to easily see the planets' relative motion over several nights.
Overall, a very cool naked-eye astronomy thing. So get your geek on, and have fun.
What you do with a computer does not constitute the whole of computing.
Thanks I probably wont have the means at that time go see it so it puts it into perspective what I will be missing.
http://www.livejournal.com/users/metricmusic
...that we can look forward to 12 peaceful years before the next round of war starts?
> Locking neck collars and cuffs.....check......whips, chains and guns........check.........rag-tag goon squad........check.........Mad Max-style vehicles.........check. Alright, I.m prepared for the after math of whatever economical, physical and enviromental damage this may cause.
You'll still need your inflatable doll, too.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
Yes, under the name Ares he bonked Venus (aka Aphrodite), the wife of Vulcan (Hephaestos), who, having his suspicions, set up a trap and caught them at it in bed with a net, and then called all the other Olympians in to see his catch, and -
Ok, I guess porn wasn't read for the quality of the plots way back then either.
Sheesh, evil *and* a jerk. -- Jade
That'll be a Hohmann transfer orbit. Or you could use the Interplanetary Superhighway
So near, yet so far...
What do the guys at fourmilab know about new years eve 2099 that we don't know? Pluto is gone in 2100!
I know Mach2 was just a guess but it is also a snails pace for space flight. The escape velocity for Earth is ~40,000km/h, so the spacecraft will need to travel at least that fast to ever get to Mars (might be easier from the moon, thus all the talk about a moon base). So probably Mach33-34 is a better estimate.
"...wouldn't planning for one of these time-frames be a good idea"
Yes, but alas someone has beaten you to it. Earth has already sent quite a few unmanned craft to Mars, all of them have taken advantage of the Mars fly-by to minimise travel time. This is what they mean when they talk about a "launch window". Using the orbits and gravity of planets and moons to get around the solar system is well understood. Have a look at the intricate looping and twisting paths of the cassini or voyager missions for an example of elegance and precision.
I have not read TFA but being a closet space geek I find the summary confusing. Mars and Earth pass each other every 2-3yrs. Mars has a more eliptical orbit than Earth. Just draw an elipse with a circle inside of it and you can see that sometimes they will pass where the two orbits are closer together and other times where they are further apart.
In 2003 the two planets passed each other at a point where the orbits are very close together, you have to go back 60,000 yrs to find another example of such a close fly-by. In 2005 the fly-by is the closest it has been since, well....2003, it wont get as close as the 2005 fly-by for another 13yrs, so what?
And did you exchange a walk on part in the war for a lead role in a cage? - Pink Floyd.
I already have my chicken-wire mask.
The attraction between earth and mars is then
6.67*10^-11*6*10^24*6.4*10^23/(54*10^9)^2 = 8,7*10^16 Newton
(metric units)
it seems a large number but if you see the mass of the earth 6*10^24 it means every kg recives a force of 1,5*10^-8 Newton.
My weight is about 80 kg it means the mars attracts me with 1,2*10^-6 N what is about 0,12 mg.
Just to get some idea of relations...
Is it just me or wasn't there a recent email hoax claiming something similar but more ridiculous than this.
Do you have an oblem?
To see Mars most clearly you should wait until it's as high above the horizon as possible, not until it's a wee bit closer.
Almost right:
> On Saturday, Mars' orbit will bring it 69.4 million kilometers away from Earth, with its closest pass scheduled for 15:25 UTC.
Or is that too 21st century?
I think the gp was refering to War of the Worlds rather than Day of the Triffids, which had nothing to do with Mars.
The escape velocity is the velocity which an object needs to have at ground level travelling upwards. Assuming that no other forces (engines, air resistance, space dust etc) are applied to that object but the gravitational pull of the earth, the escape velocity only guarantees that the object won't fall back down to earth. In fact, the eventual relative to earth speed of that object would be zero.
The easiest way to visualise it is to imagine a bullet fired from the surface on a vertical trajectory. If that bullet travels at escape velocity the moment it leaves the gun and travels in vacuum (no air resistance) it will reach a height where it is no longer affected by the earth's gravity just as it runs out of speed.
Escape velocity is a nice concept but is based on a number of assumptions. Assume gravity from a single point (not true unless you define your point as big as the earth), assume no friction (kind of hard to achieve unless you install a deflector dish on the bullet), the mass of the bullet is on a sigle point etc etc...
The rockets we put in space today have absolutelly nothing to do with the escape velocity of the earth. The whole concept is based on the excertion of a force grater than the earth's gravity for an extended period of time (rockets) as well as trajectories way off from the vertical, usually spiraling out.
No, but there were strange lights in the sky.
I did wonder briefly at the mention, but not having read War of the Worlds the proper reference went right over my head.
Is it natural variance ... or global warming?? This, and Andy Rooney, tonight on 60 minutes.
"Oppression and harassment is a small price to pay to live in the land of the free." -- Montgomery Burns.
CMO
ALPO
Of most interest is over the past three weeks there has been a nice dust storm that was visible with small telescopes from the US.
hm... it might just have been in the middle of the night, so it would be am, or plain 3:25 UTC.
However, even the official SI is from the 20th century. It's been around for 45 years now, and it's officially even accepted in the USA. They don't use it though...
So, for someone mid-Atlantic, somewhere in the tropics, Mars is going to be straight overhead at its closest point. That sounds like a good start for a Martian slasher movie: A cruise liner, a bunch of teenagers, a psycho-martian who kills twice every 60,000 years...
One line blog. I hear that they're called Twitters now.
"Mars is bright tonight. Unusally bright."
I.e., a good thing for some chill-out at our party tomorrow. :-)
Joachim
People don't write Manifestos any more -- what's going on in this world? [Frank Zappa]
but, honestly, they're still just friends
Does "strike the iron while it is hot" means shooting it with our portable airplane-pilot-blinding PowerPoint-enhancing deathrays?
read the bunni comic
That you don't like the metric system I can understand but this is a poor excuse, given that the metric system is designed exactly to simplify calculations. You too would need to use the scientific notation e.g. to express the distance to the sun in miles. Moreover there will be all kinds of crappy conversion factors going from yards to inches, miles and whatelse. Maybe the imperial system has its merits in the construction business, but metric certainly rules for engineering/scientifical applications.
Ok, ok. I just posted a dumb comment as a joke. I think this was the intention for the parent post here. Yet it is modded 5 insightful? Is someone smoking crack? You've gotta be kidding, right? Or is that part of the joke? If not, /. should not allow Mongoloid Club members to be moderators. Jeez!
Yes, jokes. You know, "jokes", right?
blah blah blah
It has come so close that I've been able to take a bite off it... Actually... I've eaten the whole thing... Several times! Pfff.... 43.1 million miles... Mars... Get in mah belly!
I remember the last time. Era er arr arrg was all GRA GRRRR ARR ARR ARR too. But, I was like uu uu o ee ee.
Having to work for a living is the root of all evil.
"In the game of life, someone always has to lose. To me, if life were fair, that someone would always be Oklahoma." -DKR
It blocks my view of Jupiter .....
I am the unwilling control for my Origin.
Mars orbits the Sun. So does the Earth. There simply is no 'usual' distance between Earth and Mars. Sheesh!
And when you're not using metric units, you automatically quit using the decimal system, too ?
The "error" in your example has exactly zero to do with the metric system, but with people have trouble counting the number of zeros.
Use as directed. Comment not valid in Canada or either of the two poles. Author not responsible for alien abductions due to stargazing.
I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?
Pic:
.
I'm an American. I was born and raised here. I use the US system (the not-quite-british system; why the heck do we have different values for the pint? bah!). when i drive to canada and see gas prices in CAD/litre, i have no idea what i'm paying, and km/h is barely a step better than reporting it in attoparsec/microfortnight. but c'mon... let's not pretend that this system we're using actually makes any sense. we use it because it's what we know, and because it would be expensive and time-consuming to change. real scientists know that SI is better... even the US Army knows it's better (a "click" is a kilometer). it's fine to be parochial here, but let's admit that's what we're doing.
/. has tons of non-American (or non-British) readers. converting to an international standard is probably the courteous thing to do.
also,
i speak for myself and those who like what i say.
I cant wait to read what cult killed, mass suicide, blah blah blah tomorrow morning. the hailbob guys were neat.that guy what the raddest.
> also, /. has tons of non-American (or non-British) readers.
For your information, a ton is 1000 kilos which is 2207,50551 lb (there are both US, UK and international tons - I was calculating with the "metric ton").
This was a public service announcement brought to you by jchillerup (who is Danish and uses SI-units in his country).
I really HATE that people insist on getting all "creative" and arty-farty by first referring to it as "Mars" and thereafter insisting on calling it "The Red Planet". Its name is "Mars", so pigging well USE IT. What makes it even worse is that Mars is nowhere near to being red anyway. GET IT RIGHT, and stop being so limp-wristed.
"Absorbing your worst..."
> On Saturday, Mars' orbit will bring it 69.4 million kilometers away from Earth, with its closest pass scheduled for @642.
(Swatch beats)
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
I don't care for TFA calling Mars the 4th rock from Sol, considering that Luna is (depending on its phase) either the 3rd or 4th large terrestrial body from Sol. (Others than parent poster can read "the Sun" for "Sol" and "the Moon" for "Luna".)
--
Terran
.. paranoid crackpot leftover from the days of Amiga.
I am so tired of this story. Every 22 months it comes back and I have to explain it to all the non-technical members of my extended family who ask me about it, expecting a freaking flash in the sky or a moon sized UFO or some crazy crap like that.
...
Think about this: all of these people are voters. Now extrapolate to environemental policies, energy issues, stem cell research
Freedom is on the march!
One simple rule for its versus it's
Because measuring the distance between the Earth and Mars in an arbitrary unit which is defined as 5,280 of some dude's foot is completely stupid. It's much better to measure the distance between the Earth and Mars with an arbitrary unit which is defined as one ten-millionth of the distance between the equator and the pole of one of these planets.
(Yes, I know it isn't defined as that anymore, but that's what it is. And the new definition is even more arbitrary than the old, although more accurate.)
I just drives me nuts when people seem to think that their units are so damn superior to others that for some reason they shouldn't have to be familiar with or convert from someone else's units.
And finally, when measuring astronomical distances, every unit you could possibly use is as arbitrary as another.
Meters: based upon the size of the Earth
AU: based upon the radius of the Earth's orbit.
light-year: based upon the time of the Earth's orbit.
parsec: based upon the length of the Earth's day (angular rotation of Earth about its axis)
http://lkml.org/lkml/2005/8/20/95
All over the place near the borders in Ontario, Quebec, and New Brunswick.
antipaucity
"It's a once in a lifetime event! Of course in astronomy we get five or six of those a year."
Old Town Sidewalk Astronomers
The Chinese government does not want to go down in history as a government that sends people to their death in interplanetary travel; it's bad PR, it's bad for business, and it doesn't even fit in with the philosophy underlying Chinese governmental authority.
In any case, what would the motivation be? The only reason for manned travel to Mars in the near future is as a publicity stunt and to make people believe that the universe works like it does in Star Trek. That illusion is going to be destroyed if you plan on leaving people there to die.
Scientifically, rovers are a far better investment right now and for the coming decades. They can stay there for months with almost no resource requirements, and they really don't have to come back.
You're exactly right. It's like jumping up and down screaming
;)
HOLY SHIT 101!!! THIS ONLY HAPPENS ONCE EVERY 60,000 YEARS!!!
HOLY SHIT 102!!! THIS ONLY HAPPENS ONCE EVERY 60,000 YEARS!!!
HOLY SHIT 100!!! THIS ONLY HAPPENS ONCE EVERY 60,000 YEARS!!!
I would wager to bet that the position of the Earth and Mars is 'special' in each of the 21,900,000 days of that 60,000 years. Should we make an announcement for each day with the headline "Mars is closer than it's been in the last 60,000 years!.... but oh yeah it was closer in 2003.
No. This is not news worthy in a mainstream news source (the original source). This isn't even news. It's like having a headline that says "THE NUMBER 500 WAY BIGGER THAN 2!!!" and each subsequent year updating to a larger number. I'm not suggesting we tailor slashdot to john-everyman. I'm suggesting that slashdot raise to higher standards than reporting announcements about the movement of planetary bodies which are extremely predicatble.
Here's a headline for ya... Microsoft is conducting itself like a business! holy shit!!! I didn't see it coming!!!
and besides... like it or not most slashdot readers ARE john-everymen. They're nerds no less, but this annoucement is nothing more than a blurb in their RSS feed. Name one reason knowing this information bettered your life.
The "orange star" has certainly been pretty in North American skies lately.
That could depend on whose foot it is.
But anyway, the definition is not arbitrary at all
And the real beauty, of course is in that second, which happens to be exactly
It's NOT arbitrary. It's poetry!
Public Viewing Session
e ts/article_1612_1.asp
m .html. We have free SFA Star Charts that you can download and print http://members.cox.net/astro7/SFAStarCharts.html. To see what's up in the sky see this Week's Sky at a Glance.
m
The observatory will be open to the public on Friday, October 28th at 8:00pm weather permitting.
Venus shines brightly in the west-southwest just before sunset. It's second in brightness only to the moon after sunset. After night falls, you'll find Mars rising in the east. Mars is closest to Earth this week and next! It's shining brilliantly at magnitude -2.2 in Aries near the Taurus border. It rises fiery yellow-orange in the east-northeast in twilight, blazes high in the eastern sky by 10 p.m., and moves over to the west by dawn. And it's rising earlier every day. In a telescope Mars is 20 arcseconds wide. For a couple of weeks it remains essentially as large as when at its very closest on the night of October 29th. Check out recent amateur images of the planet including its dust storm here: http://skyandtelescope.com/observing/objects/plan
SFA OBSERVATORY NOTES http://www.physics.sfasu.edu/observatory/obs.htm
The SFA Observatory's viewing sessions are intended for visitors of all ages and are free of charge. Since these are outdoor events, poor weather conditions may force a cancellation. The current weather report can be found here. To reach the SFA Observatory dial 936-569-0102 and for maps and directions http://www.physics.sfasu.edu/observatory/tour_for
For larger groups please email me in advance so that I can have additional help available.
In addition to our public viewing session at the SFA Observatory you may also want to attend a planetarium show on a Friday night. Here's the planetarium schedule: http://www.physics.sfasu.edu/planetarium/index.ht
"Oh drat these computers, they're so naughty and so complex, I could pinch them." --Marvin the Martian
I blame global warming. It's also the reason for all these solar flares and earthquakes.
"That's so plausible, I can't believe it!" - Leela
it decides to start rainign in oregon.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
send me. It will only be a matter of time before my ex-wife shows up.
The Kruger Dunning explains most post on
Look, up in the sky! It's the Great Pumpkin, Charlie Brown!
Weeks of coding saves hours of planning.
I can't resist griping that the phrase is "strike while the iron is hot" not "strike the iron ...". Someone needs to go read George Orwell's lecture on dead metaphors.
Also, at no time in its passage will Mars "hover". It will just continue on its merry way in its orbit, oblivious of all those humans staring at the bottom side of clouds on earth while churning out grangrous English.
Perhaps the fact that it never approaches much closer shows a deep wisdom.
[/grump]
Squirrel!
Pffft, only about .3 oo/o of warp 1. I'm not impressed.
MS must love it! Not a single mention of Microsoft or Bill Gates anywhere. Guess the intersection of Dilbert.com readers and Slashdot.com readers includes just you and me. -clueless
Chat with other atheists http://secularchat.org
My roommate and I drove off campus to one of the darker parts of the area to watch the planet and got hassled by police at about 11:20, which wouldn't be so bad in itself except we were made to stand facing them with an unneccesarily strong spotlight in our eyes, killing any hopes of seeing very well.
You do care what a mile is? There are around 8 different types of miles, which means that if you're driving 70 mph on your speedometer you could be pulled over for both speeding and driving too slow, since there are at least two different miles that are either longer or shorter. If you'd just invent some sort of system to make it all logical and in a certain base system (so you have ONE unit for something, not hundreds of units) you would be all set. And somebody did, lo and behold, and the only people that are practically ignoring it (officially everything is even metric!) are the US. Why?
You tell me.
'Fraid to say, but this info comes 2 years too late!