[quietolong]

Close Encounters with Mars Who will be the closest. When will you be closest.

http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/971059/posts

[ngc6656]

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).