Keep Lookin' Up, Cuz Mars Is Onto You!

Greetings, greetings, fellow stargazers! "Does the Red Planet seem bigger to you than last night?" may very well have been the question you have been asking these past few days, and you keep insisting it is, you are absolutely right.



You may remember just over two years ago, on August 27, 2003, when Mars came closer to our Earth than it had been in 59,619 years. It was this very day that Mars was a mere 34,646,418 miles from Earth. This phenomenon was due to what is termed as a perihelic opposition, which the perihelion is the point where Mars is closest to the sun, and, of course, the Earth. In a perihelic opposition, the Sun, Earth and Mars form a straight line, something which only happens for Mars every 15 to 17 years.



It was that day that astronomy flourished, with telescopes glistening brighter than ever before with reflections of the Red Planet's lustrous south polar cap and romantic dust clouds, all radiating from the constellation Aquarius in our southeastern horizon.

Now, with elliptical orbits of planets around the sun having a recent tendency to bring planets closer to the sun than ever in recent memory, this recent trend continues as Mars will make another exciting soiree to Earth on October 29th. (it will not be a record breaker but still most exciting) And Halloween night will be the evening for the best view of all, where it will rise at sunset and hang overhead through most of the night. It's expected to be only 43 million miles from Earth, and the brightest in 13 years.



And just to sweeten Sirius, an additional gift is being bestowed upon all of Earth's stargazers this Halloween! It so happens that the Pleiades, or Seven Sisters, will again make their hallowing appearance this All-Hallows-Eve. Many ancient cultures and civilizations have always believed that whenever the Seven Sisters reach their highest point at midnight, it was a cosmic signal that this was the time of the year to honor the dead, and eeriely enough, it always happens at this time of year and on many days honoring the dead.



Whenever the Seven Sisters reach the highest point in the heavens, it is called their culmination. Throughout history, whenever they culminated at midnight, some ancient cultures held great ceremonies in honor of the occurance.



According to a somewhat popular myth, there was a widespread belief that some great cataclysm occurred in ancient times when the Seven Sisters culminated at midnight. Some of the most superstitious of spirits have speculated that this great cataclysm might have been anything from the great flood of the Bible to the ten plagues of Egypt. The ancient Aztec and Maya cultures even conducted spectacular ceremonies to celebrate the sisters culmination. And every 52 years when their two great calendars coincided, a midnight culmination sacrifice was commenced because they believed that the world would actually come to an end on one of these "Seven Sisters overhead at midnight" nights. In addition, they believed that the world had already been destroyed and recreated four times and always when the sisters were overhead at midnight.



So sit back, switch on Jack Stargazer, and brace yourselves for the grand show this Halloween. for never will Mars be brighter at least until 2018! Holy Hadar! (does Mars sandbar sloopy) Keep lookin' up...and away.

Love,
Noah Eaton
(Mistletoe Angel)
(Emmanuel Endorphin)