JUL 28, 2003 - Approaching Mars
is NASA's way of getting us all ready for the Mars super perigee at the end of August, the Red Planet's closest approach to Earth in some 70,000 years. You already know it's coming of course, having read all about it in my Year 2003 Forecast Highlights. The NASA site explains the astronomy of this "perihelic opposition" alignment perhaps more clearly than I did, and notes that similar (though not so close) near approaches occurred in 1766, 1845 and 1924. (As explained in my article, these perihelic oppositions occur once every fifteen years or so. The NASA article links to an online University of Arizona reference listing all such oppositions from 1608 to 2035.) Get ready for this experience of a lifetime, so you can feast your eyes over the next few weeks: Approaching Mars
points the way.
The
WOW! Archive
