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Sat 16 Aug, 2003 07:34 pm
On Aug. 27, the Earth will pass within 34.7 million miles of Mars.
If that seems quite a distance, compare it to the nearest star beyond our own sun. Andrew Fox, a graduate student in the UW astronomy department, said that if someone were standing on the nearest star and flashed a light, that signal would take four years to reach Earth. If the same were to happen from Mars on Aug. 27, it would take the light just three minutes to arrive.
The planet will be so bright, in fact, that stargazers can watch it rise in the east after 9 p.m. By the end of this month, the planet will be rising about 9 p.m. Look for a constant bright shape that is reddish-orange in color, Fox advises.
Mars looked amazing on Thursday night. As the whole neighbourhood was outside, and we had no city lights to mess things up - we could really focus on the beauty of the night sky.
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