New Delhi, July 06: A historical celestial event is all set to thrill the star gazers next month when the planet Mars comes closer to Earth - closer than ever recorded in the history - providing a better chance of its view. "On August 28, Mars would be the closest to the Earth since the last 73,000 years with the distance between the two being about 55.8 million kilometres," Dr N Rathnasree, director of the Nehru Planetarium, told news agencies. Mars would not get closer than this to Earth until year 2287 when it would be 70,000 km closer.

"Mars and Earth come closer to each other once every two years in a phenomenon called opposition. But not every opposition is the same," Rathnasree said adding in an opposition, the Earth, the planet and the Sun fall in a straight line as a result of the planetary motion.

Mercury and Venus do not have any opposition as their orbits are smaller than Earth`s, she said. The opposition has significance for sending spacecrafts to mars as the planet is closer to the Earth, Rathnasree said. Recently NASA launched a spacecraft for Mars taking this into consideration.

The event can be seen with naked eye or through telescope from anywhere on the Earth - places at lower latitudes and not too north and not too south would have a better view, she said adding that opposition gives a better look at mars, which is a poor lookout for telescope viewers as it presents a small disk.

"Amateur astronomers wait for favourable Mars opposition to painstakingly view this planet," she said. The surface markings of the mars and polarise caps could be better viewed through a telescope during this time provided there is no dust cloud obscuring the view.

Bureau Report