Got this in an email, can the astro boys here verify?

 

wasnt that floating around last year about this time?

 

No, that can't happen.

 

By the time you finish reading this sentence, you'll be about 25 miles closer to Mars, according to NASA calculations.

Earth and Mars are converging, setting up a great skywatching opportunity for later this year.

Here's what's going on: Earth has the inside track as the two worlds orbit the sun. Inner planets orbit more quickly than outer planets because of the laws of gravity. Earth requires 365 days to go around the sun once, whereas a year on Mars is 687 Earth-days.

So every 26 months, Earth passes Mars on this orbital trek.

When the pass occurs, Earth and Mars are on the same side of the sun, as seen from above, with all three objects lined up in a row, and astronomers say Mars is at opposition.

As our planet catches the red planet, the distance between them shrinks dramatically. (It's an opportune time for sending missions to Mars, such as the recently launched Phoenix Lander.)

Right now, the distance between the two worlds is shrinking at a rate of 22,000 mph, or about 25 miles per sentence, NASA figures.

By late September, Mars will be one of the brighter objects in the night sky. The closest approach will occur in December, when Mars will be brighter than every star in the sky.

You might have heard that Mars will outshine our moon on Aug. 27. Not true. That rumor is rooted in an annual email that has come to be known as the Mars Hoax, one of the many enduring, mistaken ideas about the red planet.

Each August, various versions of the email land in inboxes all around the world. The hoax can be traced back to a 2003 event, when Mars and Earth were closer than they'd been in thousands of years. (At the risk of further fueling the rumor, here is an account of the 2003 event.) But the proximity was an incremental improvement, in terms of viewing Mars, compared to the vast distance that always separates the two worlds. Never can Mars even approach the brightness of the moon in our sky.

Instead, Mars will remain, as always, no more than a point of light to the naked eye. It'll grow steadily brighter through this autumn. And in modest backyard telescopes later this year, the red planet will be revealed as a ruddy disk, and sharp-eyed observers might spot some detail.

Mars currently rises around 3 a.m. local time in the eastern sky.


Source: Space.com

 

Hey mulder are you giving the plantery lecture or the in race report?

 

That was quoted but ... must have been written by a car guy.

 

It sounded ridiculous, so I Snoped it - http://www.snopes.com/science/mars.asp

 

....talkin' bout you "snoped" it..... hey Matt, search for the greeting card email haux. Thats thing has been hitting my work email for the past week. Total spam...

 

Here's a link to Heavens Above, where you can find all (and more) that you ever wanted to know about what's going on above you.

Try to see a bright Iridium Flare -- pretty awesome when it is a -2 magnitude or better. Or track the ISS as it passes overhead and just think about it . . .

. . . no need for a Mars hoax . . . the real stuff is just fine.

 

Catching the ISS isn't an easy thing. It has to be at the right place, you have to be at the right place, the sun has to be below the horizon but still lighting up the upper atmosphere.... and you still only get to see it for about 15 seconds........@ 17,500 mph..... Not to say it don't happen but you just don't look up and see it, it takes some planning.

But I agree with Y, there are plenty of celestrials to check out.