Tuesday, July 24, 2007
The Zombie Mars Hoax That Will Not Die!
It's BAAACCKK!!! Yes, the Mars Hoax is circulating again. First surfacing in 2003, during the great opposition of Mars, it seems to pop up regularly around August, the time of the 2003 opposition. Mars is at opposition this year, but on December 25th, with a rather ordinary apparent diameter of 16 arc seconds (the August 2003 opposition Mars was 25 arc seconds across, hardly the diameter of the full moon, even through a modest telescope). This will be a visible disk in even small telescopes, but you will need a modest diameter scope to see reasonable detail. We don't get to see Mars at a decent diameter again until May 2016. In the meantime, check out J Beish's guide to the 2007 opposition of Mars, or drop in to the International Mars Watch site, for the slightly oldish news and some great image archives. The images show the dust storm that is threatening the Mars Rovers. Check out Tom's story on this, as well as his story on the Mars dust devil.
Labels: Hoax, Mars, Opposition
# posted by Ian Musgrave @ 8:02 pm 
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