From an E-letter to the Family and Friends
Wednesday, August 27, 2003
It has been about 60,000
years since Earth and Mars have been this close. I hope that you noticed
the big red star, that was overhead, and then directly South as many degrees
from overhead as your latitude is! Of course it rises in the East as
the sun goes down, and sets in the West as the sun comes up in the
East.
It will be over 250 years
before we get this close to Mars again. The Hubble telescope may be
decommissioned in 2010. Whether we shall soon have another more capable
telescope in orbit to make up for the greater distances of Mars in the near
future is doubtful. Thus these are going to be
"thee" Standard for years to
come.
These pictures above are low resolution for sending easily
in the E-mail or downloading from this Web site. They are also found by
clicking on
Highest resolution pictures, will take a while to download
with telephone line modems, but are worth it! These high resolution
pictures are something to save to your hard drives, as there won't be any better
for probably two decades or more.
