Mars has been growing brighter in the night sky throughout the year so far. On Tuesday night, the planet will be at the brightest we’ve seen it in October in 32 years.
According to NASA, on October 6, 2020, Mars will be 62.1 million kilometres away from Earth. That’s the closest it’s come to us since July and August of 2018, when it reached a distance of 57.6 million km on July 31.
Mars was just 57.6 million km from Earth on July 31, 2018, the closest since 2003. By August 21, 2018, it was farther away than it is now, in October 2020. Credit: NASA/Scott Sutherland
According to NASA, Mars came even closer to Earth in 2003 – 55.7 million km on August 27 – which was the closest the two planets had been in around 60,000 years. Still, by October 2003, the planets had drawn farther away from one another than they are now.
The last time Mars was this bright in our October sky was all the way back in 1988!
How will your skies be for the event, Tuesday night? Watch the video below, which presents the forecast cloud conditions across the country.
WHAT’S GOING ON?
As Earth orbits around the Sun, it follows a slightly elliptical orbit that brings us closest to the Sun (perihelion) in January and farthest (aphelion) in July. On the other hand, Mars traces a wider ellipse, which is nearly oppositely oriented to Earth’s. Its perihelion is close to Earth’s aphelion, and vice versa.
Roughly every two years and two months, Mars and Earth experience an alignment known as Opposition. The two planets line up so that Mars is on the exact opposite side of Earth from the Sun. This year, it occurs on October 13.
Mars closest approach vs Mars conjunction of 2020. Credit: NASA/Scott Sutherland
Right around Mars Opposition, the two planets come close to one another. If this happened every 2 years, precisely, it would occur on the same day. Due to the roughly 2 months ‘extra’ tacked on, this can happen at any time of the year. In fact, there’s a specific cycle where the planets draw closer and closer for subsequent Oppositions, then pull farther and farther away, then draw closer again, and so on.
The closest of these events is always when Mars Opposition occurs in late August – with Earth nearly at its farthest from the Sun, and Mars at its closest to the Sun.
RELATED: THERE ARE EVEN MORE SALTY LAKES ON MARS
BEWARE THE MARS HOAX
An infamous internet hoax tries to claim that Mars and the Moon will look the same size in the sky. Credit: NASA
While watching Mars right now is great, due to the planet’s brightness in our night sky, watch out for a persistent hoax that will try to blow this fact WAY out of proportion.
Every year, a message makes the rounds over social media, with a wild and utterly false claim that the planet Mars will look as big as the Moon in our sky.
Typically, this message targets August 27, but the hoaxers always revive their story by just changing the date.
The plain and straightforward truth is, the planet Mars has never come even close to appearing as big as the Moon in Earth’s skies, and it never will.
The hoax meme’s problem is that it leaves out an essential detail: the only way the Moon and Mars will ever look to be the same size is if you look at the Moon with the naked eye, and Mars through a telescope.
This detail was included in an original 2003 notice to the public, which told of Mars’s closest approach in some 60,000 years, which won’t be repeated until 2287. The hoaxers subsequently left that out important detail when they repeated it in the years after.
How can we be sure it won’t happen?
Firstly, the closest Earth and Mars ever come to each other is 54.6 million kilometres. That’s roughly 142 times farther away than the Moon. So, if Mars was to appear as big as the Moon, from that distance, the planet would need to be 142 times larger than it is, or over three and a half times bigger than Jupiter!
And secondly, With a 6,779 km diameter, Mars is just under twice as big as the Moon (diameter 3,474 km). So, if Mars stayed the same size to look as big as the Moon, it would have to reach a distance of just over twice as far away as the Moon, or around 750,000 km away from Earth. Mars getting that close to Earth is just as impossible as the planet suddenly inflating to 3.5x the Jupiter size!
Some of the newest additions to this hoax try to add a measure of ‘doomsday’ to the meme. Claims of “panic in the scientific community,” due to a previous closest encounter – back in the year 57,617 B.C. – supposedly caused “changes in the earth’s crust and climatic disasters.” But that is all nonsense. Mars cannot have that kind of effect on Earth from over 50 million km away.
The best things to do for this event are to ignore any strange memes or doomsday claims, and as Mars Opposition approaches, get out and take in the Red Planet at its brightest. If you have access to a telescope or binoculars to get a closer look, all the better!
Sources: NASA | With files from The Weather Network.
NAIROBI, Kenya (AP) — The body of Ugandan Olympic athlete Rebecca Cheptegei — who died after being set on fire by her partner in Kenya — was received Friday by family and anti-femicide crusaders, ahead of her burial a day later.
Cheptegei’s family met with dozens of activists Friday who had marched to the Moi Teaching and Referral Hospital’s morgue in the western city of Eldoret while chanting anti-femicide slogans.
She is the fourth female athlete to have been killed by her partner in Kenya in yet another case of gender-based violence in recent years.
Viola Cheptoo, the founder of Tirop Angels – an organization that was formed in honor of athlete Agnes Tirop, who was stabbed to death in 2021, said stakeholders need to ensure this is the last death of an athlete due to gender-based violence.
“We are here to say that enough is enough, we are tired of burying our sisters due to GBV,” she said.
It was a somber mood at the morgue as athletes and family members viewed Cheptegei’s body which sustained 80% of burns after she was doused with gasoline by her partner Dickson Ndiema. Ndiema sustained 30% burns on his body and later succumbed.
Ndiema and Cheptegei were said to have quarreled over a piece of land that the athlete bought in Kenya, according to a report filed by the local chief.
Cheptegei competed in the women’s marathon at the Paris Olympics less than a month before the attack. She finished in 44th place.
Cheptegei’s father, Joseph, said that the body will make a brief stop at their home in the Endebess area before proceeding to Bukwo in eastern Uganda for a night vigil and burial on Saturday.
“We are in the final part of giving my daughter the last respect,” a visibly distraught Joseph said.
He told reporters last week that Ndiema was stalking and threatening Cheptegei and the family had informed police.
Four in 10 women or an estimated 41% of dating or married Kenyan women have experienced physical or sexual violence perpetrated by their current or most recent partner, according to the Kenya Demographic and Health Survey 2022.
TEL AVIV, Israel (AP) — A rare Bronze-Era jar accidentally smashed by a 4-year-old visiting a museum was back on display Wednesday after restoration experts were able to carefully piece the artifact back together.
Last month, a family from northern Israel was visiting the museum when their youngest son tipped over the jar, which smashed into pieces.
Alex Geller, the boy’s father, said his son — the youngest of three — is exceptionally curious, and that the moment he heard the crash, “please let that not be my child” was the first thought that raced through his head.
The jar has been on display at the Hecht Museum in Haifa for 35 years. It was one of the only containers of its size and from that period still complete when it was discovered.
The Bronze Age jar is one of many artifacts exhibited out in the open, part of the Hecht Museum’s vision of letting visitors explore history without glass barriers, said Inbal Rivlin, the director of the museum, which is associated with Haifa University in northern Israel.
It was likely used to hold wine or oil, and dates back to between 2200 and 1500 B.C.
Rivlin and the museum decided to turn the moment, which captured international attention, into a teaching moment, inviting the Geller family back for a special visit and hands-on activity to illustrate the restoration process.
Rivlin added that the incident provided a welcome distraction from the ongoing war in Gaza. “Well, he’s just a kid. So I think that somehow it touches the heart of the people in Israel and around the world,“ said Rivlin.
Roee Shafir, a restoration expert at the museum, said the repairs would be fairly simple, as the pieces were from a single, complete jar. Archaeologists often face the more daunting task of sifting through piles of shards from multiple objects and trying to piece them together.
Experts used 3D technology, hi-resolution videos, and special glue to painstakingly reconstruct the large jar.
Less than two weeks after it broke, the jar went back on display at the museum. The gluing process left small hairline cracks, and a few pieces are missing, but the jar’s impressive size remains.
The only noticeable difference in the exhibit was a new sign reading “please don’t touch.”
VICTORIA – The British Columbia government is partnering with a bear welfare group to reduce the number of bears being euthanized in the province.
Nicholas Scapillati, executive director of Grizzly Bear Foundation, said Monday that it comes after months-long discussions with the province on how to protect bears, with the goal to give the animals a “better and second chance at life in the wild.”
Scapillati said what’s exciting about the project is that the government is open to working with outside experts and the public.
“So, they’ll be working through Indigenous knowledge and scientific understanding, bringing in the latest techniques and training expertise from leading experts,” he said in an interview.
B.C. government data show conservation officers destroyed 603 black bears and 23 grizzly bears in 2023, while 154 black bears were killed by officers in the first six months of this year.
Scapillati said the group will publish a report with recommendations by next spring, while an independent oversight committee will be set up to review all bear encounters with conservation officers to provide advice to the government.
Environment Minister George Heyman said in a statement that they are looking for new ways to ensure conservation officers “have the trust of the communities they serve,” and the panel will make recommendations to enhance officer training and improve policies.
Lesley Fox, with the wildlife protection group The Fur-Bearers, said they’ve been calling for such a committee for decades.
“This move demonstrates the government is listening,” said Fox. “I suspect, because of the impending election, their listening skills are potentially a little sharper than they normally are.”
Fox said the partnership came from “a place of long frustration” as provincial conservation officers kill more than 500 black bears every year on average, and the public is “no longer tolerating this kind of approach.”
“I think that the conservation officer service and the B.C. government are aware they need to change, and certainly the public has been asking for it,” said Fox.
Fox said there’s a lot of optimism about the new partnership, but, as with any government, there will likely be a lot of red tape to get through.
“I think speed is going to be important, whether or not the committee has the ability to make change and make change relatively quickly without having to study an issue to death, ” said Fox.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 9, 2024.
