I heard that on August 28th that Mars is going to be close to the Earth and bigger than usuall. And it only happens every 250 years. Have any of you guys heard about this? Or have anyother info. I love looking at the stars and planets. Do any of you guys go to your local planetarium, or have telescopes? :wave:

It will be the closest to earth then it has ever been in the last 60,000 years...



search space.com about it for more information

:eek: Thats is sooo cool i am gonna have to get some pictures of it......Can't wait to see:)
Space is awesome

yeah I hope that they talk about it on the news or something I want to know more...

Yeah, my dad got something off the internet for me to read about it, I just don't know where it is right now lol. It sounds cool though. I have a really big telescope, and I'm really into space stuff, so I can't wait to see it. :D

Originally posted by *A TV People*
Yeah, my dad got something off the internet for me to read about it, I just don't know where it is right now lol. It sounds cool though. I have a really big telescope, and I'm really into space stuff, so I can't wait to see it. :D

hey if you find that paper will you plz give us more info :)

PARIS (AFP) - August is proving an unforgettable month for amateur astronomers as they turn their gaze on Mars, now at its closest to Earth since Neanderthals walked our planet.

On the 27th of this month, the Red Planet will be 55.76 million kilometers (34.65 million miles) from Earth, according to Belgian astronomer Jean Meeus, who says proximity of this kind last occurred nearly 60,000 years ago.

Like racing cars, the Earth -- the third rock from the Sun -- has the inside track over Mars, the fourth planet, as they orbit the Sun.

Earth takes a nippy 365 days to make a circuit, whereas Mars takes 687 Earth days because it is farther out.

This celestial ballet means Earth whizzes past Mars once every 26 months or so. However, the two planets take a slightly egg-shaped path around the Sun, and this factor mainly determines just how close the flyby will be.

In fact, the next time the two planets will be closer than in 2003 will be in the distant future -- in 2287.

On August 27, Mars will shine red and orange, not of course as big as the Moon or anything near its size, but certainly as bright as Jupiter, the regal giant of our solar system, ever gets. Skygazers have been thirsting for the moment.

"The Red Planet will present a large enough disk for backyard astronomers with good-sized telescopes to discern some of the planet's features, such as the polar ice cap, dark surface features and perhaps even storm clouds," the specialist website space.com says.

Mars has always cast a spell on Earth, either as a divine body, a fictionalised source of invasion or as Earth's verdant twin.

Dreamers see it as mankind's first colony in space, a stepping stone to a wider conquest of the Solar System and, who knows, the galaxy beyond.

"The Earth is the cradle of humanity, but we cannot live forever in a cradle," the Russian physicist Konstantin Tsiolkovsky, an early visionary of interplanetary travel, wrote in 1911.

No fewer than four new probes -- two US, one European and one Japanese -- are hurtling towards Mars, with their main goal to resolve the great enigma: does life, or the potential for it, exist on Earth's neighbour?

The first of these rendezvous, by Europe's Mars Express orbiter and the Beagle-2 lander it is carrying, is scheduled for December 25.

But even if these missions confirm that Mars holds water -- the essential substance for making it a staging post for humanity -- many, many years are likely to pass before a human sets a footprint in its dusty surface.

In 1952, the German scientist Wernher von Braun, father of the Nazis' V-2 rocket but also a pioneer of the US space programme, sketched his own ideas for what it would take to get Man to Mars.

The big technical challenge then, as now, is that our chemical rockets, designed for orbital flight or at most a trip to the Moon, are just too slow, cramped and fuel-inefficient for a trip spanning tens of millions of kilometers (miles).

At such speeds, the first martian astronauts would have to spend around six months just to get there; a year or so there to carry out experiments, prepare for the return trip and wait for the planetary alignment to close once more; and another six months to get back.

Call it a round trip of two and a half years: an odyssey that would place extraordinary stresses on the crew's mental and physical health, their supplies and equipment.

"The conventional propulsion techniques which we have mastered today mean that we have to take the path of economy," says Richard Heidmann, a former executive with the French rocket engine maker Snecma and president of Planete Mars, the French branch of the Mars Society, which promotes interest in our ochre neighbour.

"In other words, we have to take trajectories which do not use up lots of fuel, but they are slow."

Until a faster technology emerges -- NASA (news - web sites), for instance, is dusting off old ideas for nuclear propulsion -- Mars will remain a twinkling but forever distant lure.

cool thx a bunch :D

Originally posted by MonarC
hey if you find that paper will you plz give us more info :)

I found the paper :D Here's what it says:

Mars Spectacular

The Red Planet is about to be spectacular! This month and next, Earth is catching up with Mars in 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 2287. Due to the way Jupiter's gravity tugs on Mars and perturbs its orbit, the 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 before it happens again.

The encounter with culminate on Aug. 27th when Mars comes to within 34,649,589 miles of Earth and will be (next to 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 og August it will rise in the east at 10PM. 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 12:30AM, thats pretty convenient to see something that no human being has seen in recorded history. So mark your calendar at the beginning of August to see Mars grow pregressively brighter and brighter throughout the month.

hey isn't that so awesome... I love the universe When I look up at the stars it makes me realize just how small we are.

I love the stars too. I have them on my bedroom ceiling, I also have clouds painted on it too. I love looking at them at night when I'm in bed. My favorite is the shooting star, and I also have a comet and a pink star that I call "Mars" because that's what Mars looks like to the naked eye.

yeah i wanna see it too... we might go to discovery park to see it thru a big telescope. a few months ago we saw jupiter there. it looks like a golf ball.

Originally posted by Blair_Warner02
I love the stars too. I have them on my bedroom ceiling, I also have clouds painted on it too. I love looking at them at night when I'm in bed. My favorite is the shooting star, and I also have a comet and a pink star that I call "Mars" because that's what Mars looks like to the naked eye.

That's cool I have those glow in the dark stars on my celing too :) They are really nice to have when you go to sleep. If you get a black light it makes them glow even more.

I love to look at Jupiter through the big telescope at the planetarium. You can see the moons. And when you look at Saturn you can see the rings it's really amazing.:)

Originally posted by MonarC
I love to look at Jupiter through the big telescope at the planetarium. You can see the moons. And when you look at Saturn you can see the rings it's really amazing.:)
Yeah i saw jupiter's moons too... i didnt see saturn but i should sometime

Wow, that's pretty nifty. :D

Can't wait to take a close glimpse at it...Hope the city lights don't hover it, if possible, lol.

Now where did I put that telescope?? :crazy:

I just saw Mars!!! I was coming home from the grocery store and I saw it. It isn't that big yet, but it sure is bright. It's Orangish/Yellowish. Someone posted a picture of it on The politics board, it's bigger in the picture than what I saw tonight.

For those of you into astronomy try the program



"Starry Night Backyard"


Or "Starry Night Pro"



Both are great astronomy programs,, You can get a trial of Backyard at download.com...

Yah, my history teacher was telling us about that the other day. I plan to look for it on the 28th. Sounds interesting!!!!!!:)

http://imagecache2.allposters.com/images/145/7012Mars.jpg

I heard it could be as early as August 25-28 so look out every night if you wanna see it :D