Mars zooms in on a close-up tonight … weather permitting

The planet Mars arrives tonight for a close-up, the biggest in the world for 15 years. And the observatory of Western University invites the public to come and see it.

Jan Cami, director of the Hume Cronyn Observatory and Associate Professor of Astronomy at Western, said Tuesday at the CBC London Morning that it is a big problem because that Mars will be about 40 million kilometers closer than other close approaches.

"It's significant … If you look at Mars through a telescope, it appears about twice as big as it now appeared, say, seven years ago."

Cami says that Mars is also five times brighter now than it was then. "19659002" It's the brightest thing in the sky, with the exception of the sun and the the moon. Of course, many people have noticed that Mars was rising in the East. "

If the weather turns up tonight – and it's not very beautiful right now – the planet will be easy to spot – an orange star in the sky, it's like a star, but it is a planet, so eaaly can not miss it, at the present time Mars rises towards sunset, so trees are usually seen at about ten o'clock at night. "

weather forecasts cloudy conditions tonight with 60 percent chance of showers and the risk of a thunderstorm, and this could spoil viewing even with a telescope.

"If that's the case cloudy, we can not really use our telescopes to watch Mars. You need special equipment to look through the clouds … and we do not have that kind of equipment. So, unfortunately, if it is cloudy, direct observation is not possible. "

Even if that is the case, the Western observatory will remain open for presentations on Mars.

And Cami says, although the red planet is the closest approach to the Earth this It does not mean that tomorrow it will not be seen.

"It's going to be a little less close but it's still going to be a pretty bright vision in the sky and a pretty big planet in our telescopes."

Cami said l & # 39; Approach in progression from Mars to Earth usually occurs every 17 years, so we will not get another opportunity like this until 2035.

The Western astronomer said that Mars still inspires Earthmen because it is our sister planet, very similar to Earth, with [1965] 9002] As to whether life exists on Mars, Cami said that it will not happen overnight.

"It's a process where we step one step at a time.We will not send humans to find out if there are live animals or anything like that." [19659002] But NASA sends a robotic lander to study inside Mars, Insight, as they say, launched May 5, 2018 and is expected to land on the surface of the planet on November 26.

Cami said he will measure the vital signs of Mars, including seismology and temperature, to determine its structure and composition.