• E-mail
• Print
• Comment
• Font Size
• Digg
• del.icio.us
• Discuss article

Mars has a close encounter with Earth after a gap of 60,000 years

Posted on: Thursday, 28 August 2003, 06:00 CDT

IN A remarkable event that last happened when Neanderthals roamed the Earth, Mars burned brighter yesterday than any modern human has ever seen, outshining every star in the firmament, to the delight of stargazers from Scotland to Australia.

At 10:51 BST, the red planet and Earth passed closer together than at any time in almost 60,000 years. The two planets were 35 million miles apart - about the closest they can get.

Stargazers in parts of the southern hemisphere gathered at observatories to view Mars as night fell, while amateur and professional astronomers took advantage of the orbital rendezvous to train their telescopes on the planet.

The Hubble space telescope was turned towards the mysterious planet for the great moment. It captured a remarkable image showing the southern polar ice cap and the huge impact crater known as Hellas basin.

The picture was described as the most detailed full-globe shot of Mars ever obtained from the vicinity of Earth.

"We've never seen this kind of resolution in Hubble images, that kind of detail," said Jim Bell, an astronomer at Cornell University in the United States.

The two planets had been closing on each other at the rate of about 18 miles a second, because they are locked in a celestial waltz around the sun.

Earth has an orbit of 365 days, while Mars, on the outside track, takes 687 Earth-days. So every 780 days the two planets pass close to each other, before separating again. The two orbits are eccentric rather than circular, so there are degrees of closeness; sometimes Mars is "close" at 60 million miles.

Mars has come close to Earth at many points in human history - in the summers of 1924, 1845 and 1766, for instance.

But yesterday's close encounter was the most intimate in 60,000 years. Calculations suggest that the last time they were this close together was when cavemen inhabited the planet, on 12 September 57,617 BC to be precise.

Mars could be seen in the night sky from anywhere on Earth with the naked eye, but stargazers at lower latitudes had the best chance of a spectacular sighting.

Australia's Siding Springs Observatory, north-west of Sydney, beamed images of the red planet from its 24-inch telescope on to a large screen in a community hall.

Hundreds of stargazers queued up outside the Sydney Observatory as night fell, eager to look through some of about ten telescopes set up in the observatory's grounds.

"This is only once in a lifetime that I can see another planet ... it's really great," stargazer Rebecca Horton said.

Sydney's harbourside observatory was bathed in red light to celebrate the passing of Mars, clearly visible to the naked eye as a bright, twinkling dot.

In South Africa, planetariums and observatories said they were expecting large crowds eager to take a look at the planet through their telescopes.

Sir Patrick Moore, the presenter of BBC's Sky at Night programme, said: "You can find it easily, it is so bright, in the south at midnight. You can't mistake it, bright and red."

Cloudy weather obstructed yesterday's view in some parts of the world, but there will be other chances to get a good look at Mars.

The planet has loomed large in the sky since July and will continue to be unusually big and bright for the next few weeks. In fact, Mars will become easier for most people to see as it speeds away from Earth, because it will rise earlier and earlier each day.

Space agencies have taken advantage of this year's Mars encounter to shoot probes at it. Four space craft are en route to the red planet - two NASA missions, Europe's Mars Express and a Japanese orbiter.

Mars Express, which was launched in June, has almost reached its halfway point. It has flown about 15 million miles, and has some 20 million miles left to travel.

More News in this Category