Close Encounter to Mars

“Tonight is the night that Mars will be its closest to Earth since about 60,000 years ago.

DON"T forget to check it out (if not tonight, some other night)!!!”

“Set your Date Range on this thread for 2 weeks and check out the cool daddy animated GIF.”

“well, I am going to check it out with my kids.”

“get outta town!

<G>”

“It's not really getting closer. The government is just saying it is to get you to spend money.”

“It's Dubya's evil plan to bolster the sagging optics industry....”

“ah you guys!! You have to at least try to see it. I saw it the other day just before the police stopped me. :(

Didn't see a thing today! Sad, my kids was excited.”

“I'll check it out tonite. Hopefully we will see something, anything that looks like it could be mars. :)

It was really ovious sunday.”

“Got 6 of 8

Quiz”

“Marvin, friends of yours?

”

“8 for 8 here...”

“I would be disappointed if you got less, Bit! :)”

“lol...I was iffy on two of them, but went with my first impulse and got them right.”

“I was always told that, on a test, if in doubt, your first impulse is usually the best...”

“Both those storm troopers look like they're, uh, well, let's say, "in the 99th percentile of storm troopers when classified by weight"...”

“-225 degrees Fahrenheit?

Holy Crap!”

“You can freeze a Milky Way in ten seconds flat!

Let's see Artex and Pennsy camp out in that!”

“There's not much of an atmosphere to hold in the heat. I think the mean atmospheric pressure on Mars is about 10 millibar. 1 bar is defined to be average atmospheric pressure on Earth.

Schemes for terraforming Mars all include some sort of method to raise the atmospheric pressure, that is, add more atmosphere to Mars. Usually the gas most often specified is carbon dioxide, because you get both more pressure and a greenhouse effect, raising the mean temperature on Mars to something more livable. Also, water vapor is often specified, and the method of delivery is usually collision of a water ice asteroid into Mars!

But the biggest problem is the abundance of halides (salts) in the Martian soil, which will be need to either be removed for use by unmodified Earth plants, or be used to grow Earth plants which have been genetically modified to be more halophylic (resistant to salt).”

“Yaz... a very hot topic in sci-fi going back years and years. Contrary to the impression given in "Robinson Crusoe on Mars," you wouldn't last long without a complete environment suit.

Right now, I'm cracking up thinking of that cartoon Schwartzenegger (SP??) doing the 'explosive decompression' routine... I think I've repressed the name of that movie.

Selective Forgetting can be a good thing, LOL”

“Bit, I think it's great that there are 'bars' on Mars. Whast kind of women do they get in there? Is there a karaoke night?”

“Yeah, right on! Everybody knows there's no sausage-looking plants that you can eat on Mars, or runaway Indian-looking slaves, or little monkeys running around!”

“But isn't the highest mountain in the solar system (Olympus Mons) on Mars?

TT ROAD TRIP!”

“TB, remember, they're millibars. Only microbes can go in.”

“:(
Bet they don't even have a Happy Hour...”

“Mars Needs Women (1967)”

“Probably not, TB, but how happy can a microbe get? They're probably thrilled just to have millibars...”

“No Problemo, Cap'n!”

“I still want to check out the Valles Marineris... 1800+ miles long, 5 miles deep and up to 370+ miles wide.

No raft trips, tho'.”

“Yah, I think the air pressure goes up to a whole 15 millibar down there.

Mars is just weird. The Tharsis bulge essentially rises up out of the atmosphere. What the heck happened to that poor planet?”

“Amazing pics, Tilt.”

“Cosmik Billiards, anyone?

Microbes passed out in millibars... Riiiiiiiiight, LOL


Hey, TB... did you click on the image at APOD and see the reeeeally beeeg one? I could display it here, but...”

“Yeah, I did. As Steve Irwin would say, CRIPES!!!!!!”

“Ya think that one might screw up the thread a little? LOL”

“Part of it may be on the wall next to me...”

“Yaw... Right! Except for alittle thing not present on Mars and humans already have problems with on Mt. Everest, Oxygen!

Thanks for the info Tilt, that's one mambo-jambo volcano, however I agree that the Valles Marineris (yum... clams Marineris!) would probably give one a better "Robinson Caruso" feeling than slopping up the Mons.

TT ROAD TRIP !!!!”

“

-- The Planet That Won't Go Away --


NASA Science News for September 8, 2003

Mars' closest approach to Earth was on August 27th--but the red planet is even easier to see now.

FULL STORY at

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2003/08sep_goaway.htm?list112694”

“It has been really visible and bright here at night, even though it is often close to the fullish moon.”

“Foolish moon? Oh, ... never mind!”

“Inconstant moon...”

“Almost full moon, mister muleish man.”

“-- ish

<G>


There's another close approach tonight.”

“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 in 2287. Due to the way 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
before it happens again.

The encounter will culminate on August 27th when Mars comes to within 34,649,589
miles of Earth 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 it will
rise in the east at 10 p. m. and reach
its azimuth at about 3 a. m.

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 12:30a. m. That's 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 progressively
brighter and brighter throughout the month.”

“Thanks Ewk!”

“Are you saying Mars will for a time appear to be brighter than Venus normally appears?

Cool!”

“Better hurry to catch it.

You'll need to go back in time.

This happened August 27th, 2003.

It was pretty cool too!”

“I thought it happened before.”

“I hate when that happens. Info posted without a year. I once went to a Blues Festival in Hell, was 1 week early because the information posted was from the previous year.”

“so this happened last year? did my email get stuck in a email bag and the email people findly found it and sent it to me now :(”