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Who are the real invaders of Mars?
As midnight passes on December 31st , a red star rises over the eastern horizon. Each night thereafter, the star rises a few minutes earlier. The star is slowly drifting westward below the nearby constellation Leo. This wandering red star is the planet Mars.
By the end of March, Mars will be rising as the sun sets and gradually increasing in brilliance as Earth approaches and then passes by on March 3rd. That night, Mars is at opposition or on the opposite side of Earth from the sun. The two planets are at their closest on March 5th, when Mars will be about 63 million miles away. That distance is rather far compared to closest approaches of about 55 million miles which last occurred in 2003 and will happen next in 2018.
Because Earth and Mars are at their closest in early March, it is a good time to view the planet with a backyard telescope. Small backyard telescopes will show only the largest features, tiny white specks at the poles, and a dark marking or two that shift from one night to the next because a Martian day is half an hour longer than an Earth day. Larger backyard telescopes will reveal many of the planet’s features and may hint at faint linear features called canals.
In the late 19th century, the faint lines of Mars were explained by the astronomer Percival Lowell as a network of canals created by a Martian civilization to transport water from the poles to warmer regions. He believed Mars was dying of drought. These speculations led H. G. Wells to create a story about Martians invading the Earth to obtain its plentiful supply of water. In 1938, Orson Wells adapted the story to a radio drama causing panic in some American communities because listeners feared the invasion was real. Close-up photographs from orbiting satellites have since revealed the canals to be illusions. The weeks around opposition are a good time to send robotic explorers that can study Mars from orbit or from its surface. The Mars Science Laboratory, christened Curiosity, was launched shortly after Thanksgiving and is now on its way to an August landing in a Martian crater named Gale.
The Curiosity Rover is the latest in a series of robotic invaders sent to Mars. This probe is similar to the Mars Exploration Rovers that arrived in 2003, but it is larger and capable of analyzing samples of soil and rocks collected while traversing the Martian surface. Curiosity is also faster, capable of traveling the length of two football fields each day. Spring will pass into summer before Curiosity reaches its landing site, and by then Mars will be a fading light in the evening sky.
The featured program in the planetarium as these events draw near is titled Invaders of Mars. The program examines what astronomers were able to see through telescopes and how they interpreted the surface markings. Then it lays out Earth’s invasion of Mars with probes that orbited the planet or landed on its surface.
By the end of March, Mars will be rising as the sun sets and gradually increasing in brilliance as Earth approaches and then passes by on March 3rd. That night, Mars is at opposition or on the opposite side of Earth from the sun. The two planets are at their closest on March 5th, when Mars will be about 63 million miles away. That distance is rather far compared to closest approaches of about 55 million miles which last occurred in 2003 and will happen next in 2018.
Because Earth and Mars are at their closest in early March, it is a good time to view the planet with a backyard telescope. Small backyard telescopes will show only the largest features, tiny white specks at the poles, and a dark marking or two that shift from one night to the next because a Martian day is half an hour longer than an Earth day. Larger backyard telescopes will reveal many of the planet’s features and may hint at faint linear features called canals.
In the late 19th century, the faint lines of Mars were explained by the astronomer Percival Lowell as a network of canals created by a Martian civilization to transport water from the poles to warmer regions. He believed Mars was dying of drought. These speculations led H. G. Wells to create a story about Martians invading the Earth to obtain its plentiful supply of water. In 1938, Orson Wells adapted the story to a radio drama causing panic in some American communities because listeners feared the invasion was real. Close-up photographs from orbiting satellites have since revealed the canals to be illusions. The weeks around opposition are a good time to send robotic explorers that can study Mars from orbit or from its surface. The Mars Science Laboratory, christened Curiosity, was launched shortly after Thanksgiving and is now on its way to an August landing in a Martian crater named Gale.
The Curiosity Rover is the latest in a series of robotic invaders sent to Mars. This probe is similar to the Mars Exploration Rovers that arrived in 2003, but it is larger and capable of analyzing samples of soil and rocks collected while traversing the Martian surface. Curiosity is also faster, capable of traveling the length of two football fields each day. Spring will pass into summer before Curiosity reaches its landing site, and by then Mars will be a fading light in the evening sky.
The featured program in the planetarium as these events draw near is titled Invaders of Mars. The program examines what astronomers were able to see through telescopes and how they interpreted the surface markings. Then it lays out Earth’s invasion of Mars with probes that orbited the planet or landed on its surface.