ehh not likely

http://www.yahoo.com/s/88025

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - Mars is getting ready for its close-up, with the red planet coming as near to Earth this month as it has in almost 60,000 years.

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Its closest pass will come on Aug. 27 at 5:51 a.m. EDT, when Mars will be less than 34.65 million miles away.

The last time it came nearer was around Sept. 12 in 57,617 B.C. when Mars came about 25,000 miles closer, at a distance of 34.62 million miles from Earth.

"If Neanderthals had telescopes, they would have seen it a little bit better than we will on August 27," said astronomer Geoff Chester of the U.S. Naval Observatory in Washington.

To backyard observers, Mars will be the brightest natural object in the sky except for the sun and the moon, Chester said in a telephone interview. Even though it will be close, it will not look much bigger than it usually does.

"People are kind of all thinking that all you've got to do is go outside and you're going to see this big red blob that's half the size of the moon," Chester said. "That's not the case."

What people will most likely see is a brilliant pinkish object dominating the southern sky. At that point, Mars will be the brightest thing in the heavens. Venus would have shone bright if it had been visible, but it will be hidden behind the sun when Mars comes closest to Earth.

Mars will appear to be about the same size as a middling-sized crater on the moon, Chester said.

To get an idea of how big Mars will seem at its closest, the typical thumb held at arms' length covers about one degree of the sky, or 3,600 arc seconds. The moon is about half a degree of the sky, or 1,800 arc seconds. Mars at its closest will appear to be 25.11 arc seconds -- only about one more arc second than its usual 24.

Mars will get even closer to Earth on Aug. 28, 2287 -- but still not as close as it did in the Neanderthals' time.



ohhh i hope there will be clear a clear night sky when this happens :)

yah i've heard about this and i'm excited. here in texas, i heard that Mars will be the brightest thing in the sky. so awesome!

try not to miss it otherwise you have to wait and see it in 2199 or whenever.... :P

Originally posted by radstar

try not to miss it otherwise you have to wait and see it in 2199 or whenever.... :P
Aug. 28, 2287 to be precise.:geek:

Good luck spotting anything in NYC - so much pollution you can't tell where any stars are except Arcturus and Vega

welp it will be tonight, so if u have time and clear skies... check this once in a life time event :)

past few night, it has been a big red dot in the sky. Looks wow!! Hope it doesn't fall this way ;)

Here’s a pic of mars I took last night…

:)

Originally posted by trailergod
Here’s a pic of mars I took last night…

:)

that wuz very beautiful.

i don't know why but i keep missing mars! :cry:

first it wuz very cloudy, second it wuz late and it wuz already set above the horizon, and then it's disappearing!!!! :cry: :cry:

mars shmars.. just another dot to me.. maybe if they kablooied it.. that wouldmake for an interesting show!

I imagine, though, Richard, my friend, that if they were to kablooie Mars....that we ourselves, would most likely be smashed out of orbit of the sun....bad news. Anyone have more specific Scientific evidence on what would happen if one of the planets were to be destroyed or fall out of orbit (is that likely to happen?) I would like to know actually.

You're always keen to see what would happen if things were to blow up Rich!

Well in space everything is in motion if it encounters resistance. I would hazard a guess that if Mars were to go "Kablooey"...not only would we feel the after effects of a shock wave, but also asteroids from the explosion would be propelled toward Earth at phenomenal and deadly speeds if they hadn't vapourized.

There would probably be a "meteor" shower the likes of which we'd never seen before....not to mention some new craters on the earth and possibly the end of life as we know it. They surmise that the meteor that caused the giant crater in Arizona was not much larger than a basketball...you can imagine the speed it must have been travelling at, to have such an impact. Now imagine a chunk perhaps the size of small country hitting the planet.

Asta la Vista! Baby!

Just a guess mind you... I'm not a scientist. :cool:

One theory,
The Exploded Plante Hypothesis
by Tom Van Flandern, Meta Research:

If the Earth exploded today. Surface and crustal rocks would shatter and fragment, but remain rocks. However, rocks from depths greater than about 40 km are under so much pressure at high temperature that, if suddenly released into a vacuum, such rocks would vaporize. As a consequence, over 99% of the Earth’s total mass would vaporize in an explosion, with only its low-pressure crustal and upper mantle layers surviving.

Bodies smaller than Earth, such as our Moon, would leave a substantially higher percentage of their mass in asteroids. But the Moon has only about 0.01 of Earth’s mass to begin with.

some intresting stuff there :)

in any case all of that sounds more interesting that a ****ing dot! :D hehe.. if jerry bruckheimer reads these threads expect to see a movie about mars exploding in the near future :D