Mars, the planet named in honour of the god of war, is glowing red in our night sky. It will not be this bright again until 2018.
And like many modern warriors, its arrival has been preceded by a high-tech campaign of lies and deception.

In recent months email messages have been bouncing around the globe, predicting Mars would come so close to Earth this year it would look, to the naked eye, as big as a full moon.

"We have had lots of people, hundreds of people, ringing us," Nick Lomb, astronomer at the Powerhouse Museum's Sydney Observatory, said yesterday. "People who are quite intelligent were asking if this was true."

But he said the reports of a stunningly close encounter had been greatly exaggerated.

At its maximum distance Mars can be up to 400 million kilometres from Earth. But every 780 days our world catches up and passes the slower-moving planet as they follow their paths around the sun. On Sunday the red planet will be just 69.42 million kilometres away, the closest it will come for 13 years.

"It's already quite unmistakable, the brightest object in the eastern sky after sunset," Dr Lomb said.
But it would still be a bright reddish dot to the naked eye. "You would have to magnify it 90 times to make it look as big as the full moon."

Asked how callers responded when told the truth, Dr Lomb replied: "I suppose they were disappointed."

Sydney Observatory will hold a series of open nights so the public can view the planet.

"This is an opportunity to see features on Mars," said Dr Lomb, predicting that dark surface features should become visible in the observatory's telescopes "and possibly the polar ice caps as well".

http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/its-close...0239521902.html

I have to check it out then, I wasn't aware of this.

It's still not as close as it was in August of 2003, but with a decent telescope it should look good.

Red Planet set for close approach
Mars is set for a close encounter with Earth, approaching to within 69.4 million km (43.1 million miles) of our planet in the early hours of Sunday.
With good conditions and a lack of cloud, amateur astronomers will be able to get an unusually good look at Mars.

The Red Planet will not swing this close to Earth for another 13 years.

Small telescopes will be able to see Mars as a brilliant ball; observers with more powerful instruments will be able to see features on the surface.

In August 2003, the Red Planet made an even closer approach to Earth, when it was at its nearest for about 60,000 years at a distance of 55.6 million km (34.6 million miles).

But Mars will be higher in the sky than it was in 2003, meaning that the planet's light will not be affected as much by the Earth's atmosphere. This will make for better viewing in the northern hemisphere.

Dust storms

"In the UK you will get a clearer view than you did a couple of years ago," Peter Bond, of the Royal Astronomical Society told the BBC News website.

Through small and medium-sized telescopes, Mars will appear as a small, luminous ball.

But Mr Bond said amateur astronomers might be able to see Syrtis Major, a dark, triangular patch on the Martian surface near the equator. The planet's southern polar cap might also be visible through telescopes.

But the Red Planet is also going through its southern summer, with an accompanying increased risk of dust storms. This means surface features could be blotted out.

Mars will continue to be the brightest object in the sky for the next month.

It reaches opposition - when it is directly opposite the Sun in the sky - at 0820 GMT on 7 November. Mars will then rise in the east at sunset, reaching its highest position in the sky an hour after midnight.

Earth and Mars are usually separated by about 225 million km (140 million miles).

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/1/hi/sci/tech/4384700.stm