Message Steve O PHILADELPHIA - The looming proximity of Mars has fueled a frenzy of public and media interest as people around the globe make plans to see the neighboring world closer than ever in recorded history.
Telescopes are flying off store shelves faster than you can say "little green men" and are in short supply globally. Meanwhile, hundreds of Mars parties and other events are slated for this weekend and through next week.
At 5:51 a.m. ET (1051 GMT) on Aug. 27, Mars will be nearer to Earth than it has been in 59,619 years. A similar opportunity won't occur again until the year 2287.
In what is sure to be remembered by many as the Summer of Mars, folks are flocking to electronics stores to buy optical aids so they can see the red planet for themselves. Others are trekking to nearby observatories -- or even to distant continents -- to take advantage of public observatories.
"People are looking for telescopes, but they are in short supply at the moment," said Harvey Miller, who runs the I. Miller Precision Optical store here. Similar reports from other stores and manufacturers indicate sales of Mars merchandise -- from eyepieces to books to globes -- have jumped in recent weeks.
Even more than telescopes, Miller said customers are looking for filters and high-powered eyepieces to boost the usefulness of equipment they already own.
Worldwide impact
Telescopes sales at an electronics chain in Japan have nearly doubled compared to the same time a year ago, according to Agence France-Presse. Another store reports being sold out after overwhelming demand.
One Japanese tour group is flying to Flagstaff, Ariz., where they've reserved time on a telescope at the Lowell Observatory.
(It was Percival Lowell, after using the same observatory around 1900, who helped instigate one of the greatest bouts of Mars mania in history when he theorized that supposed canals on Mars were the work of intelligent minds.)
Group viewing sessions at the Lowell Observatory are booked solid for the remainder of August.
Hundreds of skywatching parties, lectures, workshops and public observatory sessions are planned around the world. The Planetary Society has created a web page attempting to list all the events.
Frenzy of interest
Mars has always had a knack for attracting attention. But this close pass, though unremarkable for professional astronomers, has catapulted Mars attention to a fevered level.
The science publicist at the American Museum of Natural History (AMNH) in New York told SPACE.com that "requests from the media for Mars experts have been coming in at a fast rate in the past two weeks."
Articles about the event have appeared in most major newspapers in the United States, including the The Washington Post, The New York Times and USA Today. Small community papers also have taken to covering the celestial happening. Entertainment Weekly even found cause to celebrate Mars.
The close approach was first reported in the popular media by SPACE.com in November of last year. Traffic to the company's Mars Watch section on the Web has exploded during the past three weeks.
Go out, look up
"There is a tremendous amount of rising interest," said Derrick Pitts, chief astronomer at the Franklin Institute here. "Phone calls have gone up dramatically, and e-mail questions are starting to take off."
Pitts periodically runs an introductory telescope course to teach people how to use their instruments. He said attendance was very low until recently, and now it is 50 percent more than the intended capacity as people say they want to figure out how to use telescopes they've had lying around, in order to see Mars.
The Franklin Institute has several Mars events planned this week and next at its Fels Planetarium and rooftop Bloom Observatory.
Experienced backyard astronomers have been watching Mars get brighter for months, snapping photographs as surface features have grown ever more apparent in moderately large telescopes.
Mars will not, despite some rumors on the Internet, look as big as the Moon or cause any sort of gravitational calamity on Earth.
"It's still going to look like a dot in the sky, albeit a bright dot," said Charles Liu, an astrophysicsist at AMNH's Hayden Planetarium. "The fact that it is a 60,000-year record is still kind of fun and interesting."
In a telephone interview, Liu said "interest has been really great" among students and the general public.
At its nearest, Mars will still be 34,646,418 miles (55,758,006 kilometers) away. This is less than 1 percent closer than a similar occurrence in 1971. Without a telescope, Mars looks like a very bright star. Binoculars and small telescopes can reveal the planet as a disk, rather than just a point of light.
Mars is the brightest object in the night sky right now other than the Moon and can be seen on any night. It rises shortly after sunset in the southeast and is up until daybreak, having risen high in the south overnight before sinking toward the southwest horizon.
The proximity owes to the fact that Earth and Mars are lined up on the same side of the Sun during a favorable confluence of other complex orbital mechanics. The two planets' orbits are not circular, and Mars is almost as near to the Sun is it ever gets, and Earth is about as far from the Sun as it can be.
Telescope tips
The red planet typically appears yellow or orange when viewed with the naked eye. Its color derives from iron oxide, commonly called rust, that coats the surface.
Harvey Miller, the optical equipment salesman, said anyone considering purchase of a telescope should look for one of high quality. And don't just think about Mars, he said. A smart purchase will allow enjoyable views of the Moon and other celestial objects for years to come, avoiding the common problem of expensive telescopes becoming no more than a closet obstacle.
"It's a fascinating thing to do, to go out and see the stars and the Moon up close," Miller said. "People shouldn't just [skywatch] when there's an event."
Miller's store carries high-quality telescopes starting at $99, he said. To see surface features on Mars, expect to pay more. Look for something with a lens at least 70 mm in diameter for so-called refractor telescopes, or 4.25 inches for a reflector telescope, he said.
City dwellers can improve their view of Mars by finding a darker place, perhaps in the country, or by using a light pollution filter, Miller said.
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