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Mars looming large in evening sky
AP ^
| 8/12/03
Posted on 08/24/2003 9:18:50 PM PDT by Mr. Mojo
click here to read article
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To: oceanperch
Mars is up around 11pm now. Southern sky. Just over the tree line around here (we live near Chicago).
To: Mr. Mojo
My husband is quite the amateur astronomer and he says that Mars is twice as big (in the telescope lens) as it usually is when he was viewing a lot over a decade ago.
To: Mr. Mojo
Aldo Vitagliano, of the University of Naples in Italy, calculated that Mars hasn't had as close a brush with Earth since Sept.12, 57617 B.C., when Neanderthalsruled but modern man had begun to make inroads.If I remember correctly, it was the14th. Smirk.
To: hole_n_one
Wow, it is close...
To: hole_n_one
The other one was closer. Great shots.
To: hole_n_one
I could look at this stuff for hours. Way cool.
To: quietolong
What point on the earth will be the closest to Mars?Good luck in finding the answer. I tried to find out months ago, because whoever is there will be the closest person to Mars ever (closer even than the Apollo astronauts). But even Guiness wasn't interested in that one.
27
posted on
08/26/2003 12:51:57 PM PDT
by
JoeSchem
To: DoughtyOne
Can you see the flag the astroauts put there?
28
posted on
08/26/2003 12:53:03 PM PDT
by
AppyPappy
(If You're Not A Part Of The Solution, There's Good Money To Be Made In Prolonging The Problem.)
To: Mr. Mojo
distinctive red glow It looks paler than usual--less saturated color, still reddish, but more of a light orange. It's like the redness is less pronounced while we are closer.
29
posted on
08/26/2003 12:55:46 PM PDT
by
RightWhale
(Repeal the Law of the Excluded Middle)
To: quietolong
According to quick back of the envelope calculations I just made, on Aug. 27 at 5:51 EDT, the closest point on Earth to Mars (the point on Earth where Mars would appear at the zenith) is at latitude S 15.67 deg; longitude W 143.18 deg. If my calculations are correct, the point is located in the Pacific Ocean, about 600 miles ENE of Tahiti.
30
posted on
08/26/2003 1:36:45 PM PDT
by
ngc6656
To: ngc6656; JoeSchem; Davea
To: quietolong
Thanks for the link in post no. 31, quietolong. Good article: it cuts through the hype and mentions there was trifling difference between the current opposition of Mars and the one in 1924. That year the planet was only 13,000 miles farther away. Mars appeared to be the same magnitude of brightness then as this year; its apparent angular diameter was only 0.02 arc seconds less then than now (that small amount of difference would defy detection in any telescope with an objective lens less than 250 inches in diameter).
32
posted on
08/27/2003 7:14:56 AM PDT
by
ngc6656
To: Mr. Mojo
We're DOOMED I tell ya, since Mars is now so close it is only a matter of time before this guy unleashes his lludium Q-36 Explosive Space Modulator on our planet!
33
posted on
08/27/2003 7:26:18 AM PDT
by
GunnyHartman
(2003 Ford F-150 owner with Lift Kit and 14mpg! P*ss off a liberal, buy a beast!)
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