mars -my friend sent me this. any one know more please let's know.

August 20, 2003

MARK AUGUST 27th ON YOUR CALDENDAR

>

> MARS WILL APPEAR AS BIG AS THE MOON!

>

> FIRST TIME IN AT LEAST 5,000 YEARS!

>

> Never again in your lifetime will the Red Planet be

> so spectacular!

>

> This month and next, Earth is catching up with Mars,

> an encounter that will culminate in the closest

> approach between the two planets in recorded history.

>

> The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287.

> Due to the way Jupiter's gravity tugs on Mars and

> perturbs its orbit, astronomers can only be certain

> that Mars has not come this close to Earth in the

> last 5,000 years but it may be as long as 60,000

> years.

>

> On August 27, Mars will come within 34,649,589 miles

> and will be (next to the moon) the brightest object

> in the night sky. It will attain a magnitude of -

> 2.9 and will appear 25.11 arc seconds wide. At a

> mode! st 75-power magnification Mars will look as large

> as the full moon to the naked eye.

>

> Mars will be easy to spot. At the beginning of

> August, Mars will rise in the east at 10 p.m. and

> reach its azimuth at about 3 a.m. But by the end of

> August when the two planets are closest, Mars will

> rise at nightfall and reach its highest point in the

> sky at 12:30 a.m. That's pretty convenient when it

> comes to seeing something that no human has seen in

> recorded history. So markyour calendar at the

> beginning of August to see Mars grow progressively

> brighter and brighter throughout the month.

>

> Share with your friends, children and grandchildren.

>

> No one alive today will ever see this again!

dasa · August 28, 2003

Posted Image

These two images, taken 11 hours apart with NASA's Hubble Space Telescope, reveal two nearly opposite sides of Mars. Hubble snapped these photos as the red planet was making its closest approach to Earth in almost 60,000 years. Mars completed nearly one half a rotation between the two observations.

http://www.hubblesite.org/

dasa · August 28, 2003

http://antwrp.gsfc.nasa.gov/apod/ap030827.html

Posted Image

Explanation: At about 10 am Universal Time today, Mars and Earth will pass closer than in nearly 60,000 years. Mars, noticeably red, will be the brightest object in the eastern sky just after sunset. Tonight and through much of this week, many communities around the world are running a public Mars Watch 2003 campaign, where local telescopes will zoom in on the red planet.

Pictured above is an image of Mars taken just last night from the Hubble Space Telescope in orbit around the Earth. This image is the most detailed view of Mars ever taken from Earth.

Visible features include the south polar cap in white at the image bottom, circular Huygens crater just to the right of the image center, Hellas Impact Basin - the large light circular feature at the lower right, planet-wide light highlands dominated by many smaller craters and large sweeping dark areas dominated by relatively smooth lowlands.