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This month of July is a magical month for astronomers. The warm weather invites you to admire the sky – and in the night of July 27, you will receive a double treat.
First, there is a total eclipse of the Moon. And it lies immediately above Mars, which is closer and brighter than it has been in 15 years, surpbading even Jupiter in the southwest
The Red Planet is a beautiful view through a medium-sized backyard telescope. Although only half the size of the Earth, Mars has a lot in common with our world.
Polar capsules, made of snow and ice of carbon dioxide; There is a thin atmosphere with fluffy clouds and dark markings that we thought were vegetation (they turned out to be dark rocks instead).
All of this encouraged the space community to look for life on Mars. Dozens of missions were sent to the Red Planet, including the British Beagle 2 spacecraft in 2003.
The beloved spacecraft successfully landed, but failed to deploy all of its solar panels for communicate with the Earth.
NASA had a better time with its two Viking probes, which landed in 1976. They both contained four experiments to detect signs of life. One of the four came out positive. We do not talk about little green men here, more like a little green drool!
Gil Levin's Label Release Experience was a Martian version of a procedure he had successfully conducted for many years on Earth, which was looking for Legionella bacteria in systems. air conditioning.
The process? Feed bugs something delectable; Like babies, they are burping. Lace up the nutrient with a little radioactivity, and you can detect even very small amounts of gas emitted. And that's what Levin found.
We saw his data first hand, and they were identical to the emission curves he had collected on Earth.
But Nasa had none. Their main experience – detecting carbon atoms in the Martian soil – has not succeeded. So, if there was no carbon, there could be no life. Levin was dismissed as simply a "sanitary engineer" and NASA maintained its official position.
Years later, we interviewed other scientists about NASA's failure to find carbon. "Oh – THIS experience," they said. "He was so insensitive that he would have missed 30 million bacterial cells per gram of soil."
NASA now seems to be waking up. Their car-size rover, Curiosity, landed in the Crater Crater of 154 km in diameter in 2012. The traveler was named by Clara Ma, 12, of Kansas, who said: "Curiosity is the pbadion that drives our lives. " [19659002] Six years later and Curiosity continues to go strong. Until now, he has traveled 18 kilometers and climbed 327 meters. And Nasa is not shy about the fact that Curiosity is the key to finding evidence of past or present life on Mars.
Gale Crater is the right environment to explore the history of Mars. Created by a meteorite impact 3.5 billion years ago, the basin is a rich territory of sediment – fragments of water to dust washed away by the wind. The crater is testimony to two billion years of Martian evolution.
Curiosity is the hero of experimental packages and focuses on the climate and geology of Mars; environmental conditions to support microbes; and habitability studies for human exploration.
Drilling rocks, zapping them with X-rays and probing them with microscopes, Curiosity scientists drew some remarkable conclusions. That there was once a big fresh water lake in the crater. That streams and rivers flowed. This methane in the atmosphere – an indicator of life (think farting cows) varies every year.
NASA's conclusion is that Curiosity has found evidence of "ancient lakes and rivers, a source of chemical energy, and all the chemical ingredients necessary for life as we know it."
Unsurprisingly, Curiosity finds other probes to the red planet. NASA's InSight is on the way for the moment. Due to land in late November, the lander will explore the geological history of Mars.
On board is a microchip claiming the names of 2.4 million Earthmen in search of immortality
When Mars gets closer to the Earth in 2020 (the planets get into registry every two years) he can expect to be besieged. Polls from Europe, the United Arab Emirates, China, Japan and the United States will converge on the red planet. NASA's Mars 2020 Rover mission even includes an extra helicopter.
But the most ambitious of all is Elk Musk's 2024 plan to send a crewed mission to Mars. The space pioneer, whose company SpaceX has created the family of Falcon Rockets (including the incredibly powerful Falcon Heavy, launched in February), offers four flights that year.
Will he be the first to send humans to Mars? Maybe not very soon. But we certainly do not bet against SpaceX
What's up?
The red planet is in line with the Sun and the Earth (and also the moon eclipsed) on July 27, and the closest four days later, when it is one of "Simple" 57.6 million kilometers. It's the closest approach to Mars since 2003, when it was closer than it had been in 60,000 years ago.
All month long, Mars will be brilliantly low in the southeast, in the weak constellation of Capricorn. Take a telescope if you can see its red deserts, dark markings and white polar ice caps – though the view can be disappointing as a huge dust storm is currently engulfing the planet.
Mars is the jewel of a parade of planets and stars looking south this month. To his right you will find the world of Saturn rings, then the red star Antares. Further right, the giant planet Jupiter, which shines almost as loud as Mars, and the blue-white Spica star.
In the early evening – an hour or two after sunset – Venus is shining in twilight glow to the west, next to another blue-white star , Regulus.
But let's go back to the main event. On the evening of July 27, look southeast at 9:45 pm to see Mars rise over the horizon. Above you can see a faint reddish ball.
It's the Full Moon, but not as we usually know it. Our companion world is deep in the shadow of the Earth, so sunlight does not fall directly on it.
During a total lunar eclipse, however, the atmosphere of the Earth bends a portion of the Sun's light in the shadow, so the moon is dimly lit. These rays were reddened because they had to pbad into our air – the same effect that makes the sun appear red at sunset.
We can not predict how much the eclipsed Moon will shine or fade. the time of the Earth at the time. Heavy clouds cover more sunlight, and the moon looks darker.
At 10:13 pm, the Moon will begin to slide out of the shadows. And at 11:19 pm, he will return to the intact shine of a normal Full Moon.
Journal
July 6, 8h51: Moon in the last quarter
July 6, 5:47 pm: Earth with perihelion, closer to the Sun
July 9: Venus, very close to Regulus
July 12: Mercury to the largest eastern elongation
July 13, 3:48: [19659040] New Moon; partial solar eclipse
July 14: Crescent Moon near Mercury
July 15: Crescent Moon between Venus and Regulus
July 19, 20h52: Moon in the first quarter, near Spica
July 20: Moon near Jupiter
July 22: Moon near Antares
July 24: Moon near Saturn
July 27 , 21h21: Full Moon, total lunar eclipse
To find out everything about what's going on in the sky this year, check out the latest book by Heather Couper and Nigel Henbest: Philip's 2018 Stargazing
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