Mars Closest To Earth In Nearly 60,000 Years

Ananova ^ | 8-13-2003

[PaulJ]

The eyepiece is about 10 feet in the air. It is awesomely cool..

Yeah. But you gotta be pretty tall to see through it.

[RightOnline]

"THEY have been waiting 60,000 years for this!"

Yeah................................but we have the beer...............................................

[PaulJ]

Some great pictures, Joe!Makes me want to go out and buy a telescope.

[RightOnline]

"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?"

If y'all ain't gittin' sumthin' lack theeis here..........you ain't sheeit.

[RightWhale]

do you have any idea what exactly a modest telescope would be?

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.

[wimpycat]

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.

Cool. Maybe I'll finally get around to using my telescope.

[abner]

LOL!

He has a ten foot ladder that he hauls along to be able to see in the eyepiece. It also has computer tracking. It is pretty amazing and surprisingly portable.

[kayak]

fyi

[mikegi]

Have you seen the incredible shots out on sci.astro.amateur? Here's one I found:

This guy is using a digital camera, not a webcam. Try strapping a high resolution Digicam to your scope.

[Ichneumon]

Mars Closest To Earth In Nearly 60,000 Years

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...

[Joe Hadenuf]

The images on my profile were taken with scope very similar to this 8". Mine happens to have a slightly larger aperture than this scope. Got it used for a great deal.

[ml/nj]

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.

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

[Joe Hadenuf]

Certain commercial digital cameras will work. But CCD imaging cameras are the way to go, specifically made for amateur scopes. A little pricey, but worth it. The webcams are good for brighter images like planets, lunar surface, the sun etc.

[Alberta's Child]

One of the things I remember from my days as a young amateur astronomer is that when buying a telescope, the mount is just as important as the scope itself. You can have the best optics in the world, but if your mount is not a stable one then you'll pull your hair out in frustration.

[blam]

Orbital Oddities: Why Mars Will Be So Close To Earth In August

[blam]

Ping.

[djf]

It was extraordinary last night, looming near the almost full moon. I gave away my 6" B&L a few years ago, there's nly like 3 days a year you can use it in Seattle! I've definately noticed quite a change in even the last few days, it promises to be quite a spectacular event.

[cinFLA]

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.

I am sure that there is a club nearby you can ask. Maybe they will have 'viewings'.

[djf]

And I am curious, what are the chances of seeing it after sunrise, near opposition. I managed to see Venus just once during the day before the sun went down, but it was very bright then, I think like -4

[dr_lew]

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...

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.