Posted on 05/06/2016 1:06:47 PM PDT by BenLurkin
The red planet will soon be closer to Earth that it has been in 11 years: On May 30, Mars will be about 46.8 million miles (75.3 million kilometers) from Earth. Yes, that’s still a long way off, but sometimes Mars is 249 million miles (400 million kilometers) from Earth.
What does this close approach mean for sky watchers? It means Mars will appear bigger and brighter from May 18 until June 3, according to NASA.
But you don’t have to wait. Mars already is putting on a spectacular show in the early morning sky. And you don’t need a telescope or binoculars to see it.
In fact, you’ll probably be able to find it without a star chart or an astronomy app.
In the United States, the best time to look for Mars during its close approach will be around midnight Eastern time, according to NASA. It will be the brightest “star” that you’ll see in the southeastern sky and it will appear a bit reddish.
To find out when Mars is visible in your neighborhood, you can go to timeanddate.com/astronomy and pop in your location. It will give a list of times that the sun, moon and planets rise and set
(Excerpt) Read more at wtkr.com ...
I hope Venus doesn’t get jealous. I don’t think we would fare well if Venus and Mother Earth got into one.
And hotter, for all the global warming freaks.
"Where's the kaboom? There was supposed to be an earth-shattering kaboom!"
Long as we don’t send a lot of people there; it might capsize.
Meanwhile on May 9 Mercury will transit the sun's disk (as seen from earth...just another day in orbit as far as Mercury is concerned).
Don’t worry. We are all about letting people in.
Oh. I never thought about Mother Earth getting hotter. I can see Mars’ interest. One doesn’t (usually) think of their Mother as getting “hotter”.
Expect the loonies to come out of the woodwork and soon.. Oh wait. It’s an election year, they’re already out.
Climate change is heating the Earth and making it expand from the heat. If it expands too much, its going to bump into other planets. We need comprehensive climate change legislation (i.e. taxes) now to fix this!
Such an opposition happens roughly every 14 months (not sure if it’s not 15 months or so...). No big news. I guess this time Mars is also near its perihelion (closest point to the sun), making it a little extra close to earth.
Actually there is positive computerized modeled proof that global warming is causing Mars to get closer.
The science is that the rising oceans are affecting Earth’s gravitational pull, and Mars just happens to be sucked into Earth’s gravitational sphere of influence.
If Hillary gets elected and shuts down fracking and coal, maybe we have a chance.
It means more illegal aliens.
Hmmm.
I haven't made a detailed study, but it seems the consensus of Googled "Global Warming on Other Planets" suggests these are phenomena that are observed across the solar system to varying degrees, suggesting more solar influence than the "sky is falling" crowd might otherwise like to take into consideration.
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