My grandma sent me an email with an attached powerpoint: "The Red Planet is about to be spectacular!" There is an email circulating claiming that "This month and next, Earth is catching up with Mars in 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 before it happens again.
The encounter will culminate on August 27th when
Mars comes to within 34,649,589 miles of Earth 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."
This was all true in 2003 and I'm pissed I missed it. Thanks for the tease grandma.
Mars is, however, closer than ever in another way: The mars rovers are kicking ass. Opportunity, the second rover on mars, has gone 16 kilometers, about an order of magnitude further than it was ever expected to go. The plan is to send it another 16 kilometers to a big crater. Good job little guy! Thanks to some serendipitous winds that have cleared the rovers' solar panels, the rovers have done better than ever. Keep an eye on the rovers' progress.
Saturday, May 2, 2009
Mars: Hoaxes and a rare case of NASA not blowing it.
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3 comments:
I remember the 2003 event. Mars passed through my bedroom window. It was tight.
Congratulations. You have managed to post something about a close encounter with the Red Planet without a single mention of Uranus. This has to be a first.
In 2003 Mars passed so close to me that it hit me in the face and gave me a black eye and knocked my teeth out. Mars doesn't have liability insurance, for the record.
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