Posted on 08/13/2003 4:20:40 PM PDT by blam
Mars closest to Earth in nearly 60,000 years
The wandering of the planets is bringing Mars closer to Earth than at any time in nearly 60,000 years.
Just 34.6 million miles of space will separate the two planets on August 27.
Mars was five times as distant just six months ago, and won't be as close again until August 28, 2287.
Already, Mars has begun to loom large in the late evening sky, its rusty twinkle apparent in the south east.
Aldo Vitagliano, of the University of Naples in Italy, calculates that Mars has not had as close a brush with Earth since September 12, 57617 BC, when Neanderthals ruled but modern man had begun to make inroads.
The Red Planet will still seem small to the naked eye - having the apparent diameter of a small coin seen from 500 feet away. Even though Mars is twice the size of the moon, it will be 145 times as distant.
With binoculars or a telescope, observers can start to pick out details on the planet's surface. The view from even a modest telescope should reveal the planet's southern ice cap.
Next week, astronomers will send radio waves from antennas on Earth that will bounce off Mars to study the terrain where one of the two Nasa rovers is targeted to land in January.
The close proximity will improve the resolution of the radar images, says Albert Haldemann, deputy project scientist for the rover mission.
Planetariums around the world are planning Mars-gazing parties beginning on the evening of August 26, and the Hubble Space Telescope is expected to take a close-approach portrait of the planet.
Well, I'll just have to go out and buy myself a modest telescope. Blam, do you have any idea what exactly a modest telescope would be? What size and all that? I'd seriously like to see those ice caps if possible and the planet is pretty easy to pick out in the night sky so it seems like a pretty good opportunity.
Nope. I pinged Radio Astronomer, he'll know.
It says that was done with an 8 inch telescope on June 11. Sure enough, you can see the ice cap. I'm figuring an 8 inch telescope is still pretty big but by August 27 Mars would be a lot closer. Still, I don't want to to buy some massive expensive scope that I probably won't ever use again. I wonder what the smallest scope would be that you could get a good look would be?
Source of picture: http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/18jun_approachingmars.htm
How the Greens long for the good old days before inroads- or outroads for that matter.
I took this picture last night. I think there is a good possibility that Mars has canals on it.
Eh. Remind me then.
Of course, who knows how much image processing it took to get the image in your post. To the eye, Mars may look alot dimmer.
Yeah. But you gotta be pretty tall to see through it.
Yeah................................but we have the beer...............................................
If y'all ain't gittin' sumthin' lack theeis here..........you ain't sheeit.
Get a reflector about 4 to 6 inches diameter. There are plenty of manufacturers. The mount can be anything from plain basic to fully computerized and motorized. For eyepieces, get 2 or 3 of different focal length. 3 mm would be very high power and not real useful. 12 mm would be good medium power. 25 mm would be low power and probably the favorite because it shows a wider and brighter field of view.
Cool. Maybe I'll finally get around to using my telescope.
This guy is using a digital camera, not a webcam. Try strapping a high resolution Digicam to your scope.
Um, "closest" by how much? They make it sound like it's going to be dramatically nearer the Earth than ever before in our lifetimes.
Mars makes its trip around the Sun in 1.88 of our years, Earth (obviously) makes it in 1.0 years, so that means that every 2.136 years the Earth will "lap" Mars and again they'll be at their closest positions to each other, as regular as clockwork.
The only variations in distance at those biennial passings will be due to the minor variances in orbital eccentricity and inclination, which are both quite small for Earth and Mars:
Earth eccentricity of orbit: 0.017
Mars eccentricity of orbit: 0.093
Earth inclination of orbit: 0.0 (by definition)
Mars inclination of orbit: 1.85 degrees
So just how much closer is this "closest" approach compared the one 2.136 years ago (and all the ones before that)?
If I've run the numbers through my calculator correctly, that means that the difference between the "closest" pass and the "farthest" pass will differ by only about 0.5% of the average distance. Ooh, baby...
Immanuel Velikovsky posits that Mars made a very close approach to earth about 2700 years ago. Of course, if one is educated he is supposed to think that Velikovsky was a fruitcake. But thinking outside the box is sort of a FreeRepublic tradition. I think Velikovsky may have been right, and I am sometimes comforted by the company I keep. Velikovsky has many reasons for his supposition. They are supported by this description written by Jonathan Swift in Gulliver's Travels:
This Load-stone is under the Care of certain Astronomers, who from Time to Time give it such Positions as the Monarch directs. They spend the greatest Part of their Lives in observing the celestial Bodies, which they do by the Assistance of Glasses, far excelling ours in Goodness. For, although their largest Telescopes do not exceed three Feet, they magnify much more than those of a Hundred with us, and shew the Stars with greater Clearness. This Advantage hath enabled them to extend their Discoveries much farther than our Astronomers in Europe. They have made a Catalogue of ten Thousand fixed Stars, whereas the largest of ours do not contain above one third Part of that Number. They have likewise discovered two lesser Stars, or Satellites, which revolve about Mars; whereof the innermost is distant from the Center of the primary Planet exactly three of his Diameters, and the outermost five; the former revolves in the space of ten Hours, and the latter in Twenty-one and an Half; so that the Squares of their periodical Times, are very near in the same Proportion with the Cubes of their Distance from the Center of Mars; which evidently shews them to be governed by the same Law of Gravitation, that influences the other heavenly Bodies.Swift wrote this 150 years before the moons of Mars were "discovered." Everyone marvels at Swift's getting the configuration of the moons right, but one has to realize that just getting their number correct is pretty amazing. Velikovsky's idea is that Swift was privy to some information that had been recorded during the very close approach but which is no longer extant. Other explanations I've seen are much more absurd.
ML/NJ
I am sure that there is a club nearby you can ask. Maybe they will have 'viewings'.
Ignoring the inclination, the average close approach is (1.5237 - 1.0000) AU, the minimum is (1.5237*(1-0.0934) - (1 + 0.0167) ) AU, and the maximum is (1.5237*(1+0.0934) - (1 - 0.0167) ) AU.
So the difference between max and min is ( 2 * 0.0934 * 1.5237 + 2*0.0167 ) = 0.318 AU, more than half the average distance of closest approach.
If you assume that the perihelia are in a fixed relative position ( they drift only over thousands of years ) the minimum close approach occurs when earth passes mars at a fixed point in its orbit. This means that the near minimum approaches occur whenever they happen at around the same time of year ( the end of august ) and so they are separated by an even number of years. Since they happen every 2.136 years, you just have to wait for the fractional part, 0.136, to add up to nearly a year, and then another near minimum approach will occur. 7*2.136 = 14.952 so in another 15 years you will get another near minimum close approach, but then 15*2.136 = 32.04, so in 17 more years, you'll get another, and so on.
All these near minimum approaches are subjectively pretty much the same, so your complaint does have a basis, but the "nearly as good" approaches occur every 7th or 8th approach, not every approach.
I have a Meade model 60AZ-D that I bought at Walmart for $70. This is pretty much the bottom of the line. It has a 60mm objective ( refractor ) with 700mm focal length, and 3 eyepieces - 25mm, 12,5mm, and 4 mm. The 4mm eyepiece gives 700/4 = 175X magnification. Since Mars is about 1/75 the apparent size of the moon right now, I'm seeing it at twice the naked eye size of the moon - but you'd never guess it! The moon seems much bigger, subjectively.
However, if I take a toilet paper tube and look at the moon through this "null telescope," I can see that Mars is bigger. I can superimpose the TP tube field of view on my telescopic view of Mars by putting it over my other eye. It's a little smaller than the telescope field of view.
BTW, I can see the ice cap, and some suggestion of darkish features, but the contrast is very low. Tonight is very hazy, and this helps as it cuts down the brightness.
The worst thing about the telescope is the mount, which is shaky and hard to adjust. Paradoxically, you have to develop an "expert touch" to use this "beginner's scope", but it is usable.
Don't get anything to big for a first scope. Make sure you are "into it" first before spending sizable bucks
Yeah, ignore my last post, I see where I went wrong now. I was trying to take too many shortcuts in a back-of-the-envelope estimate. Among other things I calculated my percentage using Mars' orbit as unity instead of the average closest separation between the two planets, etc.
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