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EVER ENCOUNTER WITH MARS Never again in our lifetimes will the Red Planet be so spectacular! This month and next Earth is catching up with Mars, an encounter that will culminate in the closest approach between the two planets in recorded history.
The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287.
Due to the ways Jupiter's gravity tugs on Mars and perturbs its orbit,
astronomers can only be certain that Mars has not come this close to Earth
in the last 5,000 years but it may be as long as 60,000 years. The encounter
will culminate on August 27th when Mars comes to within 34,649,589 miles and
will be (next to the moon) the brightest object in the night sky. It will
attain a magnitude of -2.9 and will appear 25.11 arc seconds wide. At a modest
75-power magnification, Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked
eye.
Mars will be easy to spot. At the beginning of
August Mars will rise in the east at 10 p.m. and reach its azimuth at about 3
a.m. But by the end of August when the two planets are closest, Mars will rise
at nightfall and reach its highest point in the sky at 12:30 a.m. That's
pretty convenient when it comes to seeing something that no human has seen in
recorded history.
So, mark your calendar at the beginning of August to
see Mars grow progressively brighter and brighter throughout the month. Share
this! No one live today will ever see this again.
"Love looks through a telescope; envy, through a
microscope."
--Josh Billings | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||