The Mars Opposition
Tonight the planet Mars will be closer to earth than at any time during the
last 60,000 years. It will be the brightest object in the night sky, a beautiful
red jewel in the firmament. It's apparent size has increased from about 5 seconds
of an arc in diameter to about 25 seconds!
On Wednesday, August 27 at 10:51 GMT the two planets Earth and Mars were separated
by 55,758,006 kilometers (34,646,418 miles). This has not happened since the
Neanderthals shared this planet with early humans, who as you know were lucky
enough to find the Obelisk and learn how to use the thigh bones of animals properly.
The next closest approach will be in 2287 – we will bring you live coverage
at the time.
A Hubble picture of Mars taken eleven hours before it's closest approach. Source:
NASA,
J. Bell (Cornell U.) and M. Wolff (SSI).
In the parlance of astronomers Mars is currently in "opposition",
a term they have obviously borrowed (without giving due credit) from the chess
world. The close approach of the two planets happens regularly when both are
on the same side of the Sun. On this occasion Earth is about as far from the
Sun as it ever gets, and Mars as close as it ever gets (the orbits of the two
planets are not quite circular).
Our resident scientist GM John Nunn informs us:
The close approach of Mars suggests that this would be a good time for the
Martians to invade Earth. The last time they did so, in June 1902, they caused
considerable devastation. I have a personal interest in this because the first
Martian cylinder plunged into the sandpits on Horsell Common, just down the
road from where I currently live. Apparently they did not use retro-rockets
or parachutes, and it has always been a mystery how the relatively fragile Martians
survived the deceleration of impact. Moving out from this first landing, they
advanced through Ottershaw (where GM Murray Chandler currently owns a house)
and devastated Weybridge and Shepperton. Armed with a heat-ray and a deadly
poison gas, it seemed that nothing could stop them. Eventually, as everyone
now knows, their invasion was defeated when they caught a nasty cold and died.
The event is commemorated in various ways locally (see, for example, the Woking
Borough web site) and has inspired various films and radio broadcasts (see,
for example, the War
of the Worlds movie, in which the invasion was switched to America). Curiously,
although the Horsell area has changed greatly in the past century, Horsell Common
and its sandpits are still much the same. I am somewhat concerned that the Martians
might aim for the same spot again and am keeping a careful watch for any meteorites
leaving a strange greenish trail. If one falls, I intend to call Tony Blair
or George W. Bush – they’ll know what to do.
The Face on Mars
There is another important aspect to this close approach of Mars. Everybody
knows that strange rock formations have been photographed on the surface of
the planet, the most famous being the "Face on Mars". It was obtained
in 1976 by the Viking Orbiter 1. In the Cydonia region of Mars it photographed
a region of buttes and mesas along the escarpment that separates heavily cratered
highlands to the south from low lying, relatively crater-free, lowland plains
to the north.
One of the images showed a face-like hill, which led many people to argue,
mostly in the lay literature, that the hill was artificially shaped. The "Face
on Mars" web site provides interested persons with both the raw Viking
images, transformed to GIF format, and a brief tutorial (with examples) of image
processing techniques applied to create "better looking" images.
Due to the near approach new images have been obtained which should delight
amateur conspiracy theorists all over the world. They show the Cydonia region
and the "face" in unprecedented clarity.
Above is the latest Hubble image taken on August 27 2003 at 10:34 GMT, seventeen
minutes before the true opposition of Mars.
This is an enlargement of the above image. An incredible geological formation,
that looks eerily familiar. We must come to the conclusion that GMs Nunn and
Chandler are in genuine danger, since the Martians are obviously fans of a different
chess player.
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