Our NewsWire database is divided into categories, many of which coorespond to Mars Missions, and also Mars Technology, the search for Life on Mars, and news about the Mars Society. The rest of the news we archive is unclassified, and is put in our General News category. See the below NewsWire for past stories in General News.

The NewsWire: General News

22-Feb-2004 - 'Mars red' is open to interpretation (The Seattle Times) Depending on how you see it, Mars is the Red Planet or the Pink Planet — or, for that matter, the Orange Planet, the Salmon Planet, or the Butterscotch Planet. No one can say for certain what color Mars is. With digital photographs now flooding from NASA's Mars rovers, scientists are trying to translate the strings of ones and zeros into images that convey the planet's true hues. Compounding the challenge is the fact that no two people see color — and no two computer monitors display color — in precisely the same way.

19-Feb-2004 - Looking at Mars in 3-D (The Cornell Daily Sun) To celebrate and explore the recent Mars landing, the office of the provost started giving away one thousand pairs of 3-D glasses last week. The glasses, which can be used to view the 3-D images being sent back by the Spirit and Opportunity rovers, are available at the information desk in the Straight.

18-Feb-2004 - Bringing Mars closer (The Durango Herald) Jumping for joy, 2-year-old Sarah and 4-year-old Emily Vierling experience a little of what Mars might be like. Weight on the Red Planet is about one-third of what it would be on Earth. Strapped in a harness, each girl takes a turn pushing off and catching big air, experiencing a simulation of Mars' gravity.

17-Feb-2004 - Giant Shrimp Debuts at Long John Silver's; America Watches for NASA News of Conclusive Evidence of Ocean Water on Mars; If Found by Feb. 29, America Gets Free Giant Shrimp on March 15 (Business Wire) It's giant news when the world's largest quick-service seafood chain introduces its biggest shrimp ever. Long John Silver's is introducing the new, nearly-half-foot-long Giant Shrimp to America this week. Long John Silver's Giant Shrimp have been in the news since mid-January, when company President Steve Davis sent a letter to NASA Administrator Sean O'Keefe, offering to give America free Giant Shrimp if NASA's Mars Rover finds conclusive evidence of an ocean on Mars by Feb. 29. The giveaway would take place on March 15, between 2 p.m. and 5 p.m.

15-Feb-2004 - A bit of 'Mars' on Earth (The Advocate) Colonization of the Red Planet might one day become more than just the plot line of a pulpy science fiction novel. The United States has two explorers currently on the surface of Mars, but they are both robots.

13-Feb-2004 - Amateur Shoots Mars "Picture of the Year" (Sky & Telescope) A California amateur astrophotographer recently received a unique double honor by having two of his Mars images featured in two well-known publications. Wally Pacholka's portraits of the red planet last July 21st over Nevada's Valley of Fire State Park near Lake Mead were chosen by TIME and LIFE magazines for their respective editions of pictorial highlights of 2003. His photo of brilliant Mars shining through Arch Rock was published as one of TIME's "Pictures of the Year" last December 22nd, while his image showing the planet next to a formation called Poodle Rock is in LIFE's "The Year in Pictures."

12-Feb-2004 - The Pros and Cons of the Exploration of Mars [Audio] (Australian Broadcasting Company) Dan Crowley of the Shoalhaven Astronomical Society believes NASA's work on Mars has increased interest in Astronomy and that we could even see a renewed 'Space Race' to get a man on Mars as was seen in the 60's to get a man on the moon.

11-Feb-2004 - Real rocket scientist to head sci-fi museum (Seattle Post-Intelligencer) The veteran NASA engineer who oversaw development of the first Mars rover has been named director of Paul Allen's Experience Science Fiction Museum and Hall of Fame. "When they said they were looking for a director, I got very excited," Donna Shirley said yesterday. "I thought it would be a really fun thing to do." Shirley, 62, who previously served on the museum's advisory board, began working on the Mars program at NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory in 1966 and became the first woman to manage a project for NASA, the billion-dollar Mars Exploration Program.

11-Feb-2004 - A virtual tour of Mars (Pittsburgh Post-Gazette) Our next-door neighbor in the solar system has become quite the Internet star. Web sites devoted to the findings of the Mars Exploration Rover mission are leaving no stone unturned -- or at least undocumented -- in meeting the public thirst for information about the Red Planet. A wide range of sites offer information, images and interactive features that take the Web surfer virtually there.

10-Feb-2004 - Op/Ed: Teen Columnist: Rovers land on Mars, have major impact here (Tucson Citizen) When Spirit landed on Mars last month, bouncing into a perfect landing to the cheers of NASA scientists, the world did something surprising: it noticed. And I decided to take senior year calculus. It wasn't the most thrilling decision of my life. But I'll need a calculus course on my college applications if I want to study astrobiology after high school. Despite my reluctance to take on senioritis and math simultaneously, you could say I was inspired. I'm not the only one.

3-Feb-2004 - Wish you were here: Imaging Mars The spectacular images of Mars being sent back by European and US spacecraft give us a thrilling insight into what it must be like to travel to the Red Planet. While the camera aboard Europe's Mars Express orbiter has captured the breathtaking scale of the planet's mesas, channels and calderas, those on the US space agency's (Nasa) rovers have caught the exhilarating strangeness of the Martian surface.

2-Feb-2004 - MarsClock for PalmOS (MarsClock) MarsClock is a clock for Mars. It is a port of Mars24, created using OnBoardC. It runs on the PalmOS operating system (v 3.0 through 5.2) and requires MathLib. The error between MarsClock and the JPL MER time sheets is less than one minute for the nominal mission duration.

30-Jan-2004 - Nasa denies 'sexing up' mars images (Ananova) US space scientists have defended themselves against allegations that they tampered with images of Mars. The claim is that Nasa experts "tweaked" pictures sent back by the two Mars rovers to make it redder. A more extreme version of the conspiracy theory says Nasa doctored the colours to hide evidence of life, such as green patches, New Scientist magazine reported.

29-Jan-2004 - Martian Water Quest Hits High Gear (Voice of America) Mars is under more intense scientific scrutiny than ever. The curiosity is about whether Earth's cold, barren neighbor was ever wet enough to support simple microbial life. Scientists speculate that liquid water once flowed there because U.S. satellites in recent years have observed channels and other land forms that appear to have been carved by water. Now, two U.S. robot rovers are on the Martian landscape to seek proof of this.

27-Jan-2004 - Twice the 'Opportunity' on Mars? Landing of Second Rover Gives America Twice the Opportunity for Free Giant Shrimp from Long John Silver's (Business Wire) With NASA's Mars Rover "Opportunity" making a successful landing in Meridiani Planum on Sunday, January 25, America now has a second opportunity to enjoy free Giant Shrimp from Long John Silver's. Long John Silver's announced on January 16 that it will give America free Giant Shrimp if NASA's Mars Exploration Rover project finds conclusive evidence of an ocean on Mars by February 29, 2004. With the successful landing of a second Rover, America can now pull for either "Spirit" or "Opportunity" to find conclusive evidence of an ocean.

26-Jan-2004 - Soviet Lunokhod designers to help build Mars rovers for ESA (Itar-Tass) The designers of Soviet Lunokhod moon crawlers will take part in the creation of a similar machine for the exploration of Mars under a programme launched by the European Space Agency. Russian technologies will be used in designing and building a Mars rover, an ESA official said. In his words, the European Aurora project calls for cooperation with two Russian organisations – the Babakin Research Centre, and the Lavochkin Research and Production Association. These organisations have rich experience of building interplanetary spacecraft and the ESA wants to use their expertise for designing the technical part of the Mars rover.

17-Jan-2004 - The Mars Scorecard (David Gore) Welcome Space Sports fans! As you are well aware, Earth is currently the underdog in the solar system division in the Expensive Hardware Lob. For every piece of hardware that returns useful information from the Lobbee's planet, the Lobber scores a point. For every piece of hardware sucessfully thwarted by the Lobbee (secret agent LGMs [two to a trenchcoat], IPBMs, "lasers", blowing sand in the lens, etc...), they score a point. Currently we are monitoring the Mars-Earth game which began in late 1960 and is still in progress. As far as we can tell, Earth has been the only Lobber, with scattered reports of a possibly thwarted Mars invasion of Earth in 1938. For those of you just tuning in, here is the play-by-play...

12-Jan-2004 - Op/Ed: America Leads Us to Mars (The Washington Dispatch) On Saturday, January 3, a journey of over 300 million miles ended, while a jaunt of less than ¾ mile on a new world would soon begin that could provide an answer to a question that has plagued humans for millennia. NASA’s Mars Exploration Rovers touched down on the red planet ending a journey of nearly six months. Shortly thereafter, the probe began to collect data that may indicate whether Mars had/has water and if life has ever existed on our interplanetary neighbor. Once again, this potentially gigantic leap in mankind’s knowledge, as is the case with nearly every major innovation and idea across disciplines, came courtesy of the United States.

11-Jan-2004 - China to Launch Next Manned Spacecraft in '05 China will launch its next manned spacecraft next year and it will carry more than one astronaut, a newspaper said Friday, nearly three months after the nation's first manned space shot was completed successfully.

3-Jan-2004 - Mars from every angle (Montreal Gazette) After a seven-month epic voyage across interplanetary space, NASA's two exploration rovers are on final approach to Mars. Spirit takes the first plunge into the Martian atmosphere tonight while its twin, Opportunity, begins its perilous decent Jan. 25. With any luck, things will go more smoothly for NASA than they have for the troubled British Mars probe, the Beagle 2. For readers inspired to make their own, armchair journeys to the Red Planet, here's a guide to essential titles, most published within the past year:

2-Jan-2004 - Hope yet for Earth probes to reach Mars (The Sydney Morning Herald) The score in the 2003-04 interplanetary cup now stands at Mars 2, Earth 1. This weekend our world gets its chance to level the game. Early last month, five spacecraft were closing in on the red planet. But then Japan declared that its Mars probe, Nozomi - Japanese for Hope - had malfunctioned and had no hope of entering Mars orbit. Then, on Christmas Day, Britain's Beagle 2 vanished while attempting to land, although optimistic officials say they have not given up hope it may be found. The only good news came when Beagle's mothership, the European-built Mars Express, slipped safely into Martian orbit. However, two more Mars landers, six-wheeled NASA rovers the size of a desk, are on their way.

30-Dec-2003 - The Night Sky … from Mars! To see the surface of Mars, we rely on robots as our virtual eyes. To see the Martian night sky, we need a computer program. With the help of astronomy simulation software such as Starry Night Pro, earthlings can take a virtual journey to Mars. Our chosen landing spot in this simulation is Gusev Crater, the expected landing site of NASA's Spirit rover, one of two probes the agency has arriving in January. From here we can gaze into the Martian sky and see distant stars and not-so-distant planets, things surprisingly familiar and things utterly strange.

27-Dec-2003 - Cursed probes that have bitten the red dust (The Guardian) Although Mars has an enduring fascination for scientists, it boasts a list of mission failures long enough to make anyone think twice about sending a multimillion-pound probe there. Missions to the red planet fail far more often than they succeed. Since 1960 there have been 35 missions, from the Soviet Union, the US and Japan. Two-thirds of them have been outright failures.

26-Dec-2003 - 2004 shaping into a very Martian new year (UPI) With the arrival of Europe's first interplanetary probe at Mars and two more U.S. spacecraft on the way, the red planet will be under intense scrutiny for months as scientists attempt to figure out why a world flecked with evidence of an Earth-like past appears dead and dry. An even more compelling question is whether indigenous life ever took root on Mars, as many suspect but cannot prove. "If you look at the surface of Mars today, it's a desolate place. It's dry. It's cold. It's barren," said Cornell University astronomer Steven Squyres, who heads the science teams for two NASA rovers scheduled to land on Mars beginning next month. "It's not an inviting environment for life, and yet we see these tantalizing clues," he said.

23-Dec-2003 - Landers Approach Mars in Quest to Find Water, Evidence of Life (Voice of America) The skies around Mars are getting crowded, and traffic on the ground will soon increase, too. The United States and Europe are sending landers to the Martian surface to provide a broader and closer view of the Red Planet. A major goal is to find water and evidence of life.

20-Dec-2003 - Tough question: Where to land? If just getting to Mars is difficult, and most would agree it is, try finding a good parking spot once you arrive. More than 100 NASA engineers and scientists from around the country spent three years searching before settling on landing sites for Martian rovers Spirit and Opportunity. Some sites were too rocky; some too dusty. Others were too steep, too windy or too cold. Engineers considered several sites too risky for landing, with lots of "bad" rocks that could damage the rovers on impact.

20-Dec-2003 - Race to Mars begins a distant search for life One will sniff, dig and bake. Two others will roam, grind and bore. Together, they could revolutionize our knowledge of the red planet and extraterrestrial life. The robotic explorers from Europe and the United States are using entirely different approaches to the cosmic quest, which begin this month with launches that take advantage of an exceptionally close Earth-Mars alignment.

20-Dec-2003 - Three probes hold promise of new insight into Red Planet The fourth planet from the sun is frigid and nearly airless, treacherous and distant, but somehow alluring. Its desertlike terrain looks as if it were scooped from the American Southwest or the African Sahara. It is a mystery waiting to be solved. When Mars swung close to the Earth this summer, as close as it has been in 60,000 years, thousands of curious stargazers searched out the planet's uniquely reddish glow and pondered what it might be like to visit.

17-Dec-2003 - Mars brightens a bit (Astronomy.com) Since August, Mars has been drifting farther away from us and getting dimmer in our sky as Earth pulls ahead of it in our course around the Sun. But a large, regional dust storm has popped up on the planet, causing Mars to brighten slightly again. The storm was first reported to the International Astronomical Union (IAU) on December 13 by planetary observer Don Parker of Florida. According to IAU Circular 8256, issued on Sunday morning, the dust storm appeared to extend over 3,000 kilometers (over 1,800 miles) of longitude (in the east-west direction) and about 1,800 km (over 1,100 miles) in latitude (in the north-south direction). It covered most of Chryse Planitia (a low-elevation plain where Viking 1 landed), extending west into Candor Chasma and south into Eos Chasma and Margaritifer Sinus. On Sunday, observations by Parker revealed that the cloud seemed to be spreading even farther south and into Argyre Planitia.

16-Dec-2003 - UA Scientist Has Role in American and European Missions to Mars (The University of Arizona) The United Kingdom and the United States are about to land separate missions on Mars, and a University of Arizona scientist has a role in both. Mars missions are fraught with risks and challenges. But with luck, both the European and NASA missions will return data, and Peter H. Smith will soon compare the results. Smith is a member of the science team for Britain’s Beagle 2 lander, which is riding aboard Europe’s Mars Express spacecraft. He's also on the team for NASA’s Mars Exploration Rover mission.

14-Dec-2003 - Astronaut launches Australian race for space (The Sun-Herald) A space industry venture backed by Australian astronaut Andy Thomas has been set up in Sydney to compete for contracts worth billions of dollars. Nine private and public stakeholders have joined the Australian Space Network and others will be recruited next year. The network founders set three initial goals:  A Fedsat 2 satellite operating by 2005;  Australian instruments on Mars by 2010; and  Australian-produced microsatellites orbiting Mars by 2015. The network's aim is to bring the country's space professionals and companies together to compete for high-technology projects sponsored by the US National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA) and the European Space Agency.

13-Dec-2003 - X-ray view of the Red Planet (ESA) Another ESA mission is turning its gaze towards Mars. This recent image was taken by the X-ray observatory XMM-Newton. All bodies in our Solar System, including planets such as Earth and Mars, emit X-ray radiation. As far as we know, there are several possible sources of this radiation.

12-Dec-2003 - Spacecraft Draw Closer to Mars (National Geographic News) Spacecraft from three different space missions are drawing closer to Mars. Over the next six weeks, landers and rovers are scheduled to touch down on the red planet's surface. Together with orbiting spacecraft, the probes will poke, scratch, sniff, and image the Martian environment for clues to the existence of past or present life. Mission scientists will clear a significant hurdle to see their spacecraft simply reach Mars.

10-Dec-2003 - Out-Of-This-World Traveling Exhibit Coming To The New Detroit Science Center As NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers prepare to land on the red planet, The New Detroit Science Center will be bringing Mars to Detroit in the traveling exhibition MarsQuest, opening Saturday, Jan. 24, 2004. MarsQuest was developed by the Space Science Institute of Boulder, Colo., with major funding by the National Science Foundation and National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

9-Dec-2003 - Las Vegas Releases Odds For Mars Probe Trifecta-of-Failure (NewsHax) Las Vegas odds makers have given the three Mars missions currently in route to the Red Planet 2:1 odds of all successfully failing. Probes from the U.S., Japan and the European Space Agencies are finally arriving at Mars in what is being billed as possibly the biggest "Trifecta of Failure" in recent memory.

8-Dec-2003 - Students send LEGO robots on mission to Mars (The Bulletin) Leaning over the edge of a tabletop painted to resemble the surface of Mars and fiddling with a whirring robot made of LEGOs, David Houghton appears to be at play. Then the 11-year-old Obsidian Middle School student speaks, earnestly explaining his role in a robotics tournament held at Mountain View High School on Sunday.

7-Dec-2003 - Students tackle 'Mission Mars' (The Denver Post) Amid the Top-40 music blaring from a speaker and more than 35 people cheering on the other side of the room, seven Kearney Middle School students stood up on the bleachers and yelled directions to their two teammates. It didn't help. Their teammates, in charge of guiding an autonomous robot through obstacles on a simulated Mars surface, heard too many conflicting messages. The team's second score was lower than its first.

6-Dec-2003 - Monkeying around on Mars (Albany Democrat-Herald) In 20 years, the students gathered in the cafeteria of Westland Middle School on Saturday might be watching the first humans land on Mars as they huddle around their flat screen monitors. Or better yet, one of them might be stepping out of a spacecraft onto the red planet itself. For now, it's the stuff of daydreams and science fiction novels, but the elementary and middle school students who attended the FIRST LEGO League tournament in Corvallis are already making plans to visit Mars. Teams from across the state gathered at Westland to compete in a robotics event that combines computer programming with LEGO know-how, in a Mars-themed event.

5-Dec-2003 - Reception of Mars Spacecrafts by Radio Amateurs (AMSAT) On 2003 Nov 16 and 22, radio amateurs using the 20m diameter antenna at Bochum, Germany (JO31OK) received signals from the Mars Express and Mars Odyssey spacecraft. So does this mean that such feats are beyond the ordinary amateur? Absolutely not! Here are some notes to confirm this. You too can receive Mars Express, even on a small dish.

4-Dec-2003 - NASA engineers, museum offer a mission to Mars on Saturday (Rocky Mountain News) Mars fans can learn more about NASA's upcoming rover mission during Marsapalooza, a traveling educational show that hits the Denver Museum of Nature & Science on Saturday. Six scientists and engineers who helped create NASA's Mars Exploration Rovers will explain the mission. The show, which is aimed at young people and families, features hands-on activities and educational demonstrations.

3-Dec-2003 - Invading the “Death Planet” Does that sound a little melodramatic when it comes to describing the difficulty of landing on Mars? Not according to Ed Weiler, NASA’s associate administrator for space science: He says he commonly refers to Mars as the “Death Planet,” in recognition of the fact that two-thirds of all Mars missions have fallen short of success.

27-Nov-2003 - Mars exploration challenges youngsters (Clarke Times-Courier) Teamwork, initiative and imagination were used to produce a third place finish overall for the Robo Raiders, Classical Cottage School's hone schooling Lego Robotics Club, Nov. 15 in the FIRST Lego League Charlottesville regional tournament. They came in third out of 23 teams and qualified to advance to the state meet at Virginia Tech on December 7, 2003.

27-Nov-2003 - The Maniacs are crazy about Mars (The Times-Picayune) A team of Mandeville-area scientists, mathematicians, researchers, programmers and engineers has created a robot programmed to sweep the dust off the planet Mars, catapult rocks and explore the Red Planet's rough terrain. Since it is made of Legos, the robot itself probably won't ever make it to Mars. But space travel certainly is possible for these talented team members, at least when they are old enough for the trip.

26-Nov-2003 - Wild About Mars (The Planetary Society) On January 3, 2004 (Pacific Standard Time) Spirit, the first of two NASA Mars Exploration Rovers will bounce down on Mars and begin an amazing adventure. This historic event happens just one day after Stardust flies through comet Wild 2 to collect samples to return to Earth. What a remarkable weekend of space exploration! The Planetary Society invites you to join Buzz Aldrin, Ray Bradbury, Bill Nye the Science Guy, JPL mission scientists, and fellow space enthusiasts to witness Spirit's Landing LIVE and celebrate Stardust's encounter.

25-Nov-2003 - The Science Guy speaks (The Battalion) Restless in their seats, hundreds of students from across Texas waited in eager anticipation. Some had arrived an hour early just to get the right spot to see their hero. The crowd clapped in unison, chanting "We want Bill!" Eventually, the wave broke out. And when "Bill Nye The Science Guy" stepped up to the podium in the middle of the floor, one would have thought he was at a Beatles reunion concert. Girls shrieked, boys pumped their fists and parents nodded their heads. "We're here tonight to celebrate technology," Nye said.

24-Nov-2003 - Solar Storms Rock Missions to Mars: Spirit, Opportunity, Mars Express, Beagle 2, and Nozomi Move in on Mars (The Planetary Society) The record-setting solar storms that rained through the atmosphere earlier this month appear to have rocked both the American and European spacecraft en route to Mars, causing some temporary set-backs but no lasting damage. Japan's first mission to another planet, Nozomi, on the other hand, which suffered a crippling problem from a solar flare in 2002 seemed this time around to suffer more from a storm of exaggerated reporting than a flare from the Sun.

23-Nov-2003 - Students put Lego robots to the test on imaginary Mars (The Holland Sentinel) Students filled the halls of Macatawa Bay School Saturday looking for their way to Mars. Their vehicle for the trip to the Red Planet? A Lego robot. Thirty-six teams of fourth- through eighth-graders strained their brains for West Michigan Lego Mania. The students mission was to create a device to be used on Mars. They were judged for clearing dust from a solar panel and freeing a Mars Rover from a sand dune. Mock Mars settings were set up where the students practiced and were judged.

23-Nov-2003 - Students test robot creations (Fairbanks Daily News-Miner) Seventh-grader George Ferree had an intense look on his face. His robot built of LEGOs, The Titan, was exploring an obstacle course set up on a mock face of Mars. He got off to a good start in the second round of competition when Titan connected three habitation modules for 21 points, but when the small computer-programmed robot went to drop a red ball to be catapulted off the course, Titan dropped the ball just short of the launcher. The multi-colored Titan still backed up and bumped the contraption so it fired without the small ball. While he didn't get the full amount of points for this mission, he still tallied partial points for the task.

19-Nov-2003 - Blockbuster Space Exhibit Launches World Premiere at Pacific Science Center SPACE: A Journey To Our Future opens to the public on Saturday, November 22, 2003 at Pacific Science Center. The exhibit will be on display in Seattle until May 9, 2004. Space is made possible by General Motors, the SPACE Day Foundation and Lockheed Martin. The exhibit is produced by Clear Channel Exhibitions in educational collaboration with NASA and the NSTA and presented locally by SUBWAY Restaurants, KOMO TV and The Seattle PI and Infinity Radio Group.

19-Nov-2003 - NASA club presents findings from Mars (The Saratogian) Saratoga Springs High School Science Teacher Charles Kuenzel and students involved in the school's NASA Club updated the Board of Education Tuesday with highlights of their recent trip to Arizona State University to study Mars.

13-Nov-2003 - State of the Union: Emerging Europe Resets Space Priorities Calling for a more active role in exploration and research, the European Commission has adopted a plan that will boost spending on space programs and hopefully set a definite European course into space. The space action plan, a 60-page policy paper developed by the commission -- executive arm of the European Union (EU) -- highlights Europe's needs to ensure independent access to space, promote exploration and attract younger professionals to space-related professions.

30-Oct-2003 - School challenge: Launch mission to Mars (The Cincinnati Enquirer) Sixth-graders at Meadowview Elementary School are launching a Global Surveyor to Mars this week. It's intense work and a chaotic experience, at best. As a mission manager, much responsibility falls on the shoulders of Shelbi Gould, 11.

24-Oct-2003 - New flag has Mars theme (The Exeter News-Letter) The Stratham Memorial School has announced that the schoolwide theme for the year is Mars! The idea behind a schoolwide theme is to build on the Responsive Classroom model used throughout the school. It increases the feeling of community and connection that students of all ages have with one another. Over the course of this year, most of the grades will be studying space and Mars as part of their curriculum.

23-Oct-2003 - Gemstone outcrops found on Mars (Ananova) Large outcrops of a gemstone mineral commonly used in jewellery have been found on the surface of Mars. On Earth, the mineral olivine takes the form of the brilliant green gemstone peridot. An instrument aboard a Nasa spacecraft spotted a 30,000 square kilometre area rich in olivine in the Nili Fossae region of Mars.

20-Oct-2003 - Students use Legos to develop skills (Iowa City Press-Citizen) If there's anything Patrick McCaffery has known and enjoyed in his short life, it's Legos. He has a 5-gallon bucket nearly full of the plastic blocks stashed away at home. "My dad introduced me to Legos at a very young age," said McCaffery, a 10-year-old Regina Elementary fifth-grader. "They're just really fun. When I grow up, I want to be a game designer or a toy designer." Patrick now shares his love of Legos with 11 of his classmates in the Regina Lego club. Since mid-September, the group of fourth-, fifth- and sixth-graders has met twice a week for two hours to train for the 2003 US FIRST Lego League Challenge.

16-Oct-2003 - Program at college will bring Mars to Barstow (The Desert Dispatch) The Barstow Community College gymnasium will be transformed into Mars this weekend during a hands-on NASA workshop open to the public. During "Barstow Space Days," residents can see a lightweight version of the Mars Exploration Rover in action, view mission holographic images, and learn about more than 18 past and current space missions -- like Genesis, Voyager, and Galileo -- from mission personnel.

3-Oct-2003 - A Dream Come True (Tulare Advance-Register) It's quite a feeling when a dream finally comes true. After two years of talking, planning, begging for help, watching volunteers put in long hours, the ImagineU Children's Museum will open on Saturday. Children can go on to the Mars Yard, which got its finishing touches last weekend with the help of architect Dana Berry (also president of the museum board), builder Andy Anderson and volunteers Ben Owen, Daniel Reyna and Mark Koenig. They used Styrofoam, chicken wire and cement to create an authentic-looking Mars surface where children can steer remote-controlled rovers. Eventually, there will be a computer center where young astronauts can control the spacecraft.

1-Oct-2003 - SPACE.com Exclusive: Mars Agenda Needs Work, Report Concludes NASA faces thorny technological problems and money woes in furthering its Mars exploration agenda over the years to come, SPACE.com has learned. A skyrocketing price tag for a Mars lander in 2009, planetary protection issues, approaches to collect Martian rock and soil for Earth return, and the overall scope of science investigations done at the red planet have been called to question. A Mars Exploration Program Analysis Group (MEPAG) has flagged NASA regarding these and other concerns in plotting out future exploration plans of that puzzling planet.

30-Sep-2003 - NASA exhibit to touch down in Palm Springs (The Desert Sun) Laser beams and plasma screens, interactive computers and something called lenticular lenses. They’re all part of NASA @ Your Library, an exhibit at Palm Springs Library detailing the high-tech world of space exploration through the eyes of the renowned space agency. On Oct. 10, Jet Propulsion Laboratory physicist Kevin Grazier will present "All About Mars," a 6 p.m. lecture on the red planet.

28-Sep-2003 - More to Mars than meets the eye (The Toronto Star) During this past summer, amateur astronomers have been seeing Mars with more sharpness and detail than ever before. Part of this has been due to the historic close approach of the planet. But most of the gains in clarity stem from the use of inexpensive Webcams — tiny cameras originally intended for recording low-resolution movies with a computer for transmission over the Internet. When applied to recording Mars, the Webcam results have been nothing short of astounding, rivalling the finest pictures taken by the world's largest telescopes just a few years ago.

23-Sep-2003 - Mars didn't fall short (Visalia Times-Delta) As the whole world watched last month, Mars swung closer to Earth than ever in recorded history. It was quite an event. Observatories all over were awash in a sea of visitors eager for a glimpse of the Red Planet as it passed. The Purcell Observatory in Tulare was certainly no exception, as record numbers turned up for a gander through the telescopes. Mars didn't disappoint. It might even have been showing off some. I've certainly never seen it look better. Neither has anyone else. Unfortunately, those who didn't see Mars at its absolute best in August won't get another chance for 284 years. Good news, though: The 2003 show isn't over!

18-Sep-2003 - Mars remains a big event Just because the media hoopla peaked three weeks ago doesn't mean the Mars show is over. And it doesn't mean Brian Craven is through getting people excited about it. "Mars is still up there and the show is still good," said Craven, amateur astronomer and membership coordinator for the Brevard Astronomical Society.

18-Sep-2003 - Meade Instruments Reports Second-Quarter Fiscal 2004 Results (Business Wire) Steven G. Murdock, president and CEO of Meade Instruments, said: "The Mars opposition had a positive impact on second-quarter results, driving an increase in sales of mid-priced and higher-priced telescopes. These increases, however, were offset by a significant decrease in small telescope sales due, in part, to conservative purchasing patterns by certain of our domestic dealers. Sales at the Simmons subsidiary, acquired in October 2002, came in as expected at approximately $8.0 million for the quarter.

16-Sep-2003 - National Space Exhibit Blasts Off The exhibition, "SPACE: A Journey to Our Future," touches down at Seattle's Pacific Science Center on Saturday, November 22. Created in collaboration between NASA and the National Science Teachers Association (NSTA), the SPACE exhibition is produced by Clear Channel Exhibitions. It was made possible by General Motors (GM) with additional support from the Space Day Foundation and Lockheed Martin. The 12,000-square-foot exhibition, one of the largest touring space exhibits ever developed, will be on display in Seattle through May 9, 2004. It will travel to other museums and science centers in several U.S. cities over the next five years. "We hope this exciting exhibit will help to inspire the next generation of explorers," Loston said. "We want to fuel the imagination and ignite the desire for discovery in the youth who will be our nation's next pioneers of air, space and Earth," she said.

11-Sep-2003 - For star-gazers, a once-in-60,000-years opportunity (The Wellesley Townsman) future astronaut, students majoring in astronomy and astronomy enthusiasts stood in line at the Wellesley Observatory to view Mars make its closest pass to Earth in 60,000 years -and no one mentioned Martians. Last Friday night, hundreds of people cheerfully waited for hours to get a glimpse of the red planet named after the Roman god of war.

11-Sep-2003 - Mars: The Show Continues (Sky & Telescope) Now that Mars's record-breaking close approach is history (it happened on the night of August 26–27) is the show over? No way! Mars remains just as big and bright, for all practical purposes, during the first half of September. It will shrink and fade only a little until well into October. Moreover, in one way the show is getting better than ever! Every day Mars rises higher in the sky earlier in the night, which makes it easier to view at a more convenient hour.

9-Sep-2003 - Mars through Amateur Eyes Ed Grafton is like a one-man Hubble Space Telescope. Okay, so that accolade is perhaps a bit lavish. But few backyard astronomers have achieved Grafton's level of expertise when it comes to photographing planets. He took this picture of the red one from his back yard in Houston, Texas on Aug. 26. He used a 14-inch Celestron telescope.

9-Sep-2003 - Students turn out for look at Mars (The Pantagraph) The moon was the brightest source of light. A bright dot -- the planet Mars -- also was visible. When Mark Cabaj positioned his telescope, he saw individual craters on the moon and ice on the Red Planet.

8-Sep-2003 - The Planet that Won't Go Away Mars' closest approach to Earth was on August 27th--but the red planet is even easier to see now.

8-Sep-2003 - A Lunar-Martian Tango Tonight If Mars is in your mental rearview mirror following its close approach in late August, you might want to glance out your front window on the way home tonight. The red planet is set for another center stage appearance, this time in a celestial tango with the Moon. The two objects will be near one another in the sky tonight and again Tuesday. They will appear closest just before dawn Tuesday.

7-Sep-2003 - Enthusiasm still high for Mars viewing (The Post-Crescent) Fox Valley skywatchers haven’t seen the last of Mars, even though the planet has moved beyond its relatively close brush with Earth. Local astronomy enthusiasts say Mars actually will be better placed in the sky as it finishes out its roughly two-year pass this fall. It will appear smaller and dimmer but higher in the sky.

7-Sep-2003 - Mars's approach unearths find (The Boston Globe) The week that Mars moved to its closest point to Earth in 60,000 years, one of the area's best-kept secrets was revealed. About 400 people thronged to Merrimack College in North Andover on Aug. 27 to view Mars through the high-powered telescope housed in the school's observatory. Ordinarily, just a handful of stargazers show up at the observatory on Wednesday evenings, when the domed room is open to the public.

7-Sep-2003 - Students, families spend night stargazing (The Modesto Bee) The heavens opened up over the playing field at Sacred Heart Catholic School, delighting astronomy buffs. Dozens of students and their parents turned out Thursday for a stargazing party put on by the Stockton Astronomical Society. They got a chance to gaze at Mars -- past its best viewing but still bright as it completes its closest approach to Earth in 60,000 years -- as well as a half-moon and a host of constellations.

7-Sep-2003 - Eye on Mars (The Times-Picayune) Neither cloudy skies nor a downpour of rain could dampen the enthusiasm of sky watchers assembled Aug. 29 at the Audubon Louisiana Nature Center. Looking through high-powered telescopes, binoculars and with the naked eye, they hoped to gain a glimpse of Mars as it made its closet pass to Earth in more than 50,000 years.

4-Sep-2003 - Space Imaging Mars Gallery (Space Imaging) These two images of Mars were taken by Space Imaging’s IKONOS satellite as the red planet and Earth reached their closest proximity in nearly 60,000 years. At that point which occurred last week, Mars was 34.6 million miles (55.6 million kilometers) away. The first image (left) was taken on Aug. 26, 2003 at 21:40 GMT (3:40 p.m. MDT) as IKONOS came out of the eclipse of the Earth and orbited over our planet’s northern pole. The second image (right) was taken a little more than a half a Martian rotation later on Aug. 27, 2003 at 12:26 GMT (6:26 a.m. MDT). The Martian south polar ice cap is visible at the bottom of both images. The resolution of these images is approximately 67 km. IKONOS takes images of Earth at 1-meter resolution.

3-Sep-2003 - Mars was coloured by meteorites Laboratory evidence is challenging theories that Mars' ruddy surface came from a past when the planet was awash with water, New Scientist says. Defenders of this hypothesis say Mars' reddish dust came from iron in rocks that over billions of years dissolved into the planet's oceans, lakes and rivers. But US scientist Albert Yen of NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory has assailed this idea, noting a strange discrepancy between Mars' dusty topsoil and its rocks.

29-Aug-2003 - Mars gazing phenomenon hits NZ (New Zealand Herald) Mars gazers are flocking to New Zealand's observatories for a rare glimpse of the Red Planet in its closest orbit to earth for 60,000 years. Stardome Observatory in Auckland's One Tree Hill Domain has seen visitor numbers to its night-time shows treble since launching its Mars programmes two weeks ago.

29-Aug-2003 - Hundreds pack observatory (The Daily Evergreen) As a result of the combined efforts of WSU physics professor Guy Worthey and the Palouse Astronomical Society, WSU students and Pullman residents alike were seeing stars, and a historical glimpse of Mars, Wednesday night. Held at WSU's Jewett Observatory, the Mars viewing event attracted more than 1,000 attendees and lasted well into the following morning.

29-Aug-2003 - Hong Kong star lovers fascinated by Mars (eastday.com) Busy Hong Kong people laid aside their worries about job and making money temporarily Wednesday night and went outdoor to enjoy the mysterious red planet, Mars, as it came to the closest point to Earth in 60,000 years. However, the red star and its Hong Kong fans are still 55.76 million kilometers away from each other.

29-Aug-2003 - Students work toward mission to Mars (The Auburn Plainsman) Members of the Auburn University Student Space Program (AUSSP) are developing a series of satellites that will aid them in their quest to launch the first student-built satellite to Mars by the end of the decade.

29-Aug-2003 - China aims to send probe to Mars by 2020 (Hindustan Times) China, not content with the closest views of Mars man has glimpsed since the Stone Age, is hoping to launch a space probe to the red planet by 2020, state newspapers said on Friday. The probe would orbit Mars and conduct tests on the planet's makeup and atmosphere, the Beijing Youth Daily quoted Liu Zhenxing, a fellow at the Chinese Academy of Sciences' Space Science and Applied Research Institute, as saying. China is planning to send an astronaut into space for the first time later this year and become the third country to accomplish that feat, after the former Soviet Union and the United States.

29-Aug-2003 - Close pass by Mars leaves big impression on Chinese people (Xinhua News Agency) The rare occasion of Mars' closestpass to earth at the end of this month has left the people in China contemplate their distance from the rest of the world in astronomy research. The occasion, astronomers said, was as a touchstone of the Chinese people's science awareness. Many astronomy fans in the country joined their foreign peers from Aug. 27 to 29 to celebrate the Red Planet's mere separation of 55.6 million kilometers from earth, and experts said their enthusiasm indicated that Chinese people's eyes are no longer fixed only on their daily necessities.

29-Aug-2003 - Mars watch canceled due to fire (Missoulian) Mars will wait. "Everybody's so psyched to see Mars this week," University of Montana astronomer Diane Friend said Thursday. "But it will be just as spectacular well into September." In fact, the viewing could be better in September because the red planet will be higher in the nighttime sky, giving watchers less atmosphere to peer through, said Friend, who organizes and hosts summertime open houses at UM's Blue Mountain Observatory.

29-Aug-2003 - A view to remember (Odessa American) As national astronomers gleefully look at new pictures of Mars via the Hubble telescope, Permian Basin residents will gather tonight at the Marian Blakemore Planetarium in Midland to gaze at the Red Planet. Mars, which is passing closer to earth now than it has in thousands of years, is easily visible in the southern sky for Permian Basin skygazers, said Gene Hardy, director of the planetarium at the Museum of the Southwest.

29-Aug-2003 - Stargazers relish the chance to get a close look at Mars (The Herald) Dozens of telescopes set up on the Sultan High School football field found their target Wednesday in the southeast at about 9:20 p.m. Appearing among twinkling constellations in the clear sky was a bright object that looked to the naked eye like another star, just a lot brighter than the others.

29-Aug-2003 - What they said about... Mars (The Guardian) The tangerine glow of Mars, visible from Earth as it made its nearest approach to this planet for 60,000 years on Wednesday, united the newspapers across the world in wonder and contemplation.

28-Aug-2003 - Close look at Mars? It's still not too late (The Baltimore Sun) Neanderthal man went extinct waiting for Mars to be this close again. Modern man waited 59,619 years and got ... rained out? Showers, thunderstorms and clouds canceled evening Mars parties across the Baltimore area last night, dousing plans for crowds of people to see the planet looming closer than it has been since woolly mammoths roamed the country. But experts say it's not too late. "The good news is that Mars will be almost as close to the Earth, and therefore almost as bright, for many weeks," said Kelly Beatty, executive editor of Sky & Telescope magazine. "Just go out whenever it's clear."

28-Aug-2003 - Hubble Mars photos wow astronomers The Hubble Space Telescope captured spectacular images of Mars during the planet's close pass by Earth, including astonishingly detailed pictures of a polar ice cap and a giant canyon wall. "We've never seen this kind of resolution in Hubble images, that kind of detail," Cornell University astronomer Jim Bell said Wednesday, pointing to a wall of the Valles Marineris, a canyon that runs 4,500 kilometers (2,800 miles) across the Red Planet.

28-Aug-2003 - Mars Attracts! Earthlings Love the Red Planet This week, the Red Planet is closer than at any time since Neanderthals roamed the forests of Europe, nearly 60 millennia ago. Anyone who takes the trouble to step out of the house in the late evening will see Mars hanging in the southeast like a pinkish, Christmas-tree light. It will be bright enough to throw shadows, although this particular trick will go unnoticed unless you’re someplace very dark. There are five planets we can see with our naked eyes, but no one doubts that the most appealing is -- and long has been -- Mars. Mars attracts. Why is this? What’s so special about this planetary neighbor?

28-Aug-2003 - Distant neighbor Mars edges closer, captures attention and imaginations On Wednesday, at precisely 9:51 and 14 seconds GMT, the Earth and Mars narrowed the distance between them to its smallest in 59,618 years: a mere 34.647 million miles (55.758 million kilometers). Star-gazers around the world -- better equipped optically but probably no less dazzled than the Neanderthals of the time of the last close-encounter -- looked skyward as the red planet's orbit swung into stride with the Earth's.

28-Aug-2003 - Mars viewing makes quiet observatory a star (The Tennessean) Mars madness gripped stargazers in Nashville as Tuesday night passed into Wednesday morning and the planet Mars passed closer to the Earth than it had in 60,000 years. Rick Chappell, director of Vanderbilt University's Dyer Observatory, estimated that between 800 and 1,000 people turned up for the chance to look at the red planet through the observatory's 24-inch window onto the universe. Octogenarians, toddlers and those in between waited up to four hours in order to say they had been present at the cosmic event.

27-Aug-2003 - Quaking astrologers spell disaster as Mars bears down on Earth Death and destruction will stalk the Earth as Mars, bringer of war, terrorism and disaster, rumbles Wednesday to its closest point to our planet for 60,000 years, awestruck astrologers warn. While stargazers excitedly grab their telescopes for an unprecedented glimpse of the Red Planet, soothsayers insist the focus should instead be on survival, as Earth's violent celestial neighbour rampages ominously close

27-Aug-2003 - Distance Between Earth, Mars To Reach Absolute Minimum Today (Novosti) Today on August 27th, the distance between the Earth and the Mars will reach its absolute minimum, which happens in the universe once in five thousand years. The moments when the planets come closer to each other are called "opposition" in the scientific world, academic secretary of the Astronomy Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences Dmitry Ptitsyn recalled in an interview with a RIA Novosti correspondent.

27-Aug-2003 - Closest Martian encounter for 60,000 years (The Guardian) No one in Britain will see the closest encounter in human history, because it will happen in daylight. But at 10.51 BST today, the planet Mars will be nearer Earth than at any time since 56,617BC. At that moment, the two will be 34,646,418 miles apart.

27-Aug-2003 - California's cutting-edge telescopes prepare for Mars-gazing California's observatories and planetariums on Wednesday were preparing telescopes for hundreds of astronomy buffs seeking to zoom in on Mars as it makes its closest approach to Earth in 60,000 years.

27-Aug-2003 - Astronomers flock to observatories as Mars closes in, hope for clear skies Tens of thousands of astronomers in Asia got a close-up look at Mars as the Red Planet passed closer to Earth than at any time in the last 60,000 years Wednesday, although cloudy weather prevented many from witnessing the spectacle.

27-Aug-2003 - US stages "Mars Parties" for close encounter Americans held "Mars Parties" and flocked to observatories that were specially opened to mark Earth's close encounter with the Red Planet on Wednesday. Shops reported a run on telescopes as the public sought out Mars, which was an estimated 55.76 million kilometres (34.65 million miles) from Earth.

27-Aug-2003 - Earthlings revel in Mars close-up The last time the red planet was this close to Earth 60,000 years ago, man lived in caves. No wonder when Mars and Earth synchronized their orbits a few minutes before 6 a.m. EDT Wednesday -- bringing them closer to each other than at any time in recorded history -- thousands of people around the globe went outside to take a peek.

27-Aug-2003 - Hubble Makes Best Mars Globe Photos Ever The first of two highly anticipated Mars portraits from the Hubble Space Telescope was released this morning as the observatory's operators took advantage of a proximity to the red planet not equaled in 59,619 years. The color photograph includes Mars' Hellas Basin, a huge impact crater, and the southern polar ice cap is unmistakable. It is the most detailed full-globe shot of Mars ever obtained from Earth's vicinity.

27-Aug-2003 - Mad for Mars: Stargazers Flock for a View (The Washington Post) You may already know that 41 minutes before sunrise this morning, Mars drifted closer to Earth than it ever has in human history. A mere 34,646,418 miles separated the planets. The last flyby of this proximity occurred nearly 60,000 years ago, when perhaps a dreamy Neanderthal paused in the thankless grind of natural selection to behold the heavens.

27-Aug-2003 - Rendezvous with Mars: world gazes at planet "that still makes men dream" Astronomers, professional and amateur, started gazing at Mars Wednesday hoping for a good look at the Red Planet as it moves closer to Earth than at any time since Stone Age Neanderthals roamed the world.

27-Aug-2003 - Jakartans jostle for free tickets to see Mars Hundreds of people jostled at the only observatory in the Indonesian capital Jakarta Wednesday for a free ticket to catch a glimpse of Mars as the Red Planet passes closer to Earth than at any time in the last 60,000 years. School children in uniform struggled with adults to get a ticket which will allow each of them to look at Mars for two minutes at the Jakarta Planetarium.

27-Aug-2003 - Mars closer to the Earth tonight (The Australian) MARS will be closer tonight than at any time in the past 60,000 years, but cloud cover could dim the planet's spectacular red glow in many parts of Australia. At 7.51pm AEST, Mars will be 55.76 million kilometres from Earth - about four times closer than usual.

27-Aug-2003 - Mars approach will make men randy, Portuguese astrologer warns The proximity of the planet Mars, which will be its closest to Earth for almost 60,000 years on Wednesday, will make men more predisposed to having sex, a Portuguese astologer has warned. "Men will be sexually more active," Rui Lorga told daily newspaper A Capital. "But it will not be just them, obviously women will also feel the influence of Mars, however in a more subtle way," he added.

27-Aug-2003 - Mars Close Approach (Astrobiology Magazine) Never previously in modern human history has Mars been as bright or as close to Earth as tonight. Look for it in the night sky, as it will be easily recognized by its red tinge. As with all planets, its light will also stand out from the background of stars, because it will not appear to flicker, but instead looks like a steady, bright object. An amateur's four-inch telescope may reveal the polar cap and some surface features.

27-Aug-2003 - Mars encounter will be "hostile" for India say astrologers The proximity of the planet Mars, which will be its closest to Earth in almost 60,000 years on Wednesday, is likely to be "hostile" for India, astrologers warned. Lachhman Das Madan, chief of the Astrology Study and Research Institute in the capital New Delhi, said the Mars encounter was "a dark planetary configuration" and would unleash "negative energy."

27-Aug-2003 - Mars to Earth: Tahiti looks good (Toronto Star) Mars, and any little green men and women who might be living on it, had a terrific view of Tahiti this morning as the red planet reached its closest point to the Earth since 57,617 B.C. At 5:51 a.m. Toronto time, the planet was a mere 55,758,000 kilometres from the South Pacific islands — about 3,200 kilometres closer than it came to the GTA — before zooming away from us again. In the time it takes you to read this sentence, Mars will be about 50 kilometres farther off, although viewing will continue to be awe-inspiring through the week.

27-Aug-2003 - For that perfect Mars pic, French stargazers marry optics and the Internet As Mars span towards its closest rendezvous with the Earth since the Stone Age on Wednesday, a group of French enthusiasts counted on off-the-shelf Internet technology to get that perfect snap to show their grandchildren. Although the team at the Ludiver observatory at La Hague, near Cherbourg on the Normandy coast, were mounting a continuous Mars-watch, they also hooked up a simple off-the-shelf webcam to their 60-centimeter optical telescope.

27-Aug-2003 - Mars movements spark huge rise in German "UFO sightings" As the planet Mars has moved to its closest point to Earth in around 60,000 years, the number of "UFO sightings" in Germany has soared, a researcher said Wednesday. "I'm hearing some of the most outrageous claims at the moment," said Werner Walter, who heads Germany's CENAP centre tasked with investigating reports about unidentified flying objects.

27-Aug-2003 - Hubble Space Telescope's Viewing Plans For Earth's 'Close Encounter' With Mars NASA's Hubble Space Telescope made observations of the planet Mars on August 26 and 27, when Earth and Mars were closer together than they have been in the last 60,000 years. As Hubble's high-resolution images of the Red Planet are received at the Space Telescope Science Institute and are digitally processed by the Mars observing team, they will be released to the public and news media via the Internet. The Hubble images are the sharpest views of Mars ever taken from Earth. They reveal surface details as small as 17 miles (24 km) across. Though NASA's Mars-orbiting spacecraft can photograph the Red Planet in much finer detail, Hubble routinely serves as a "weather satellite" for tracking atmospheric changes on Mars and for probing its geology on a global scale.

26-Aug-2003 - Mars extraordinarily close to Earth tonight (San Francisco Chronicle) Astronomers -- both amateur and professional -- are likely to be out in force if Bay Area skies remain clear tonight and Wednesday night, when the planet Mars makes its closest approach to Earth in 60,000 years. At 2:51 a.m. PDT Wednesday the orbit of Mars will carry it within 34,646, 437 miles of Earth. Mars is already brighter than any other object in the night sky save the Moon.

26-Aug-2003 - Best view of Mars in 60,000 years (CBC News) A once-in-a-lifetime planetary event is drawing Canadians out of their homes late at night to look up this week. Mars and Earth will reach their closest encounter in 60,000 years. The beauty of the show is the red planet shines so brightly that city dwellers can't miss it despite the street lights, so long as they know where to look.

26-Aug-2003 - Earth to Mars: Come Closer Jupiter may be king of the mythological gods. But, among the planets, it's Mars' time to shine. When it draws closer to Earth than it has in some 60,000 years Wednesday, it will be brighter than any planet except Venus. And, since Venus makes only a fleeting appearance at sundown, it won't steal the Red Planet's show. At 5.52 a.m. eastern daylight time Aug. 27, Mars will be a "mere" 34,848,754 miles away. That's 1,188 miles closer to Earth than Mars came in 1924.

26-Aug-2003 - New Mars Photo Called Sharpest from Earth A new ground-based image of Mars is being touted as one of the sharpest ever taken from Earth. Astronomers took advantage of Mars' historic close approach, the nearest in about 60,000 years, to photograph the red planet with the United Kingdom Infrared Telescope (UKIRT) in Hawaii. The result is "perhaps the sharpest image of Mars ever made from the ground," said Jeremy Bailey of the Anglo-Australian Observatory and the Australian Center for Astrobiology at Macquarie University in Sydney.

26-Aug-2003 - Mars Makes History: Closest to Earth Aug. 27 As if executing a cosmic air kiss, Earth and Mars will come as close as they desire in the wee hours of Wednesday during an historical event that has captivated the attention of skywatchers around the globe. The two planets will be separated by 34,646,418 million miles (55,758,006 million kilometers) at 5:51 a.m. ET (1051 GMT) on Aug. 27.

25-Aug-2003 - Close Encounters with Mars At 09:51 universal time (UT) on August 27th, Earth makes its closest approach to Mars in nearly 60,000 years. The two worlds, center-to-center, will be just 56 million kilometers apart--a short distance on the scale of the solar system. The last people to come so close to Mars were Neanderthals. Magazine articles, newspapers, and TV shows have touted the encounter for months. But they all omitted one detail: Which part of Earth?

25-Aug-2003 - 4 boys die in a car crash after viewing Mars (Mainichi Interactive) Four boys died in a car crash in the predawn hours of Monday after apparently viewing Mars, police said. Investigators suspect that the car was speeding at the time of the accident, and are trying to determine the exact cause of the crash.

25-Aug-2003 - Mars Animated Jefferson Teng wanted to make a longer movie of Mars. "Unfortunately I had to wait for Mars to show up above my house roof," he said. "My laptop storage capacity is another problem." So all we get is this remarkable series of images, spanning two hours and 39 minutes on Aug. 12. Teng used 5.1" refractor telescope and a digital camera to capture an image every five minutes.

25-Aug-2003 - Interview with Elon Musk (HobbySpace) HS: As I understand it, you were initially interested in funding a Mars mission but the high cost of launching such a mission led you to develop your own launcher. Are you actively planning a Mars mission for the Falcon or its heavier follow-on derivatives? Don't know if the payload weight matches the launcher, but it would be cool if you launched the AMSAT-DL led P5-A Mars mission. A private launcher sending an AMSAT spacecraft to Mars would definitely signal a new era in space exploration! Musk: No, right now I'm just focused on building a high quality launch vehicle and a top notch space technology company in SpaceX. At some point, I might do the Mars Oasis mission, but that would be a separate, philanthropic venture. My original motivation for MO was based on the notion of "where there is a will, there is a way". However, I now think it is the other way around. As evidenced by the attention given the Shuttle tragedy, the dream of space is an integral part of the American identity. So if people think that there is a way to get to space, they will take that path. We need to show that it exists.

25-Aug-2003 - Mars: The Solved and Unsolved Mysteries More eyes are glued to Mars this week than has probably been the case since Orson Welles and his Mercury Players scared folks with his radio rendition of H.G. Wells' War of the Worlds. This is a good week to take a look: Mars will be closer on Wednesday, Aug. 27 than ever in recorded history. The buzz has been elevated to mania as all manner of media -- from the New York Times to Entertainment Weekly -- have latched onto a story first reported last November by SPACE.com.

25-Aug-2003 - Close encounter, by celestial standards (San Francisco Chronicle) Sixty thousand years ago, the Neanderthal people and early modern humans must surely have watched a faint but familiar point of light in the southeastern sky grow brighter and brighter until its brilliant topaz-yellow light outshone everything in the nighttime heavens save the moon. We will never know what those people may have thought or feared, because they left no record among their rare artifacts. But today we do know what they were seeing: It was the distant planet Mars, flying on its elliptical track around the sun and closing its gap on Earth's orbit while it appeared to blaze in brightness as the two planets neared.

25-Aug-2003 - Science fiction author's birthday celebrated with Mars viewing (Sarasota Herald-Tribune) It was an opportunity too perfect to let pass: the 83rd birthday of science fiction writer Ray Bradbury came as Mars made its closest approach in nearly 60,000 years. Members of the Planetary Society marked the occasions with a party Saturday at their Pasadena headquarters. Then 150 guests went to the Mt. Wilson Observatory, where they peered through a five-foot telescope at the Red Planet celebrated in Bradbury's stories.

25-Aug-2003 - Training an Eye on Mars (Washington Post) At 2 o'clock on a recent morning, Bob Bunge ambled into the inky darkness of his Bowie back yard and prepared to meet an old friend. He swung the end of a massive home-built telescope skyward, gazed over the branches of a silver maple tree, then zeroed in on Earth's nearest neighbor. "Mars is as bright as I've seen it in my 23 years of amateur astronomy," he said, marveling at the detail he could spot on the Red Planet: the shimmering southern polar ice cap, and the alternating bands of darkness and lightness that gave Mars the mottled look of an overripe orange.

25-Aug-2003 - Hubble to Photograph Mars at Close Approach The Hubble Space Telescope will be pointed at Mars this week to make two color photographs of the red planet during its historic close approach to Earth. The pictures are being billed, in advance, as the best pictures of Mars ever taken from Earth or its vicinity. "The Hubble pictures will provided the sharpest views of Mars ever seen by a telescope located at Earth," said Ray Villard, news director at the Space Telescope Science Institute, which operates Hubble. "Though the Mars orbiters routinely yield stunning close-up views, we'll be treated to a gorgeous pole-to-pole global snapshot of the planet."

24-Aug-2003 - Our best look at Mars, ever The wandering of the planets will bring Mars closer to Earth this month than at any time in nearly 60,000 years. It will be a last-chance proposition for all alive today: Mars won't be as close again until August 28, 2287.

22-Aug-2003 - Mars and Earth: The Top 10 Close Passes Since 3000 B.C. We are in the home stretch of the historic 2003 close encounter with the planet Mars, which occurs officially at 5:51 a.m. ET on Wednesday, Aug. 27. Earth has been approaching Mars ever since Aug. 10 of last year. At that time Mars was situated on the opposite side of the Sun at a distance of 248 million miles (400 million kilometers) from the Earth. When it finally emerged into the morning sky some weeks later, Mars was shining no brighter than a mundane second magnitude star. But we have been slowly creeping up on Mars ever since, catching it on the inside of a celestial racetrack around the Sun.

22-Aug-2003 - Telescope sales boom in Japan as Mars closes in As Mars drifts its closest to Earth for 60,000 years, Japanese amateur astronomers are snapping up telescopes, globes of the Red Planet and some are even heading to Arizona to watch the spectacle. On August 27, Mars -- the fourth planet from the Sun -- will shine red and orange and as bright as Jupiter, the giant of our solar system.

22-Aug-2003 - Mars Fever at Full Pitch, Telescopes in Short Supply 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.

21-Aug-2003 - Mars' approach spurs CfA 'Fever' (Harvard Gazette) The Center for Astrophysics (CfA) is offering a viewing of Mars at its Oak Ridge Observatory in Harvard, Mass., this Sunday (Aug. 24). For one night only, a drawing will give 40 lucky sky-watchers - weather permitting - a chance to view Mars through the 61-inch-diameter Wyeth reflector (the largest optical telescope east of the Mississippi). A 16-inch reflector and other telescopes will be available to all other guests. CfA will offer tours of the observatory from 7:30 to 8:30 p.m., followed by public viewing from 8:30 to 10 p.m. The rain date is Aug. 25. The Oak Ridge Observatory is at 40 Pinnacle Road.

21-Aug-2003 - No place like dome It was 1969 and Neil Armstrong had just become the first man to set foot on the moon. A space enthusiast placed a small advertisement in a local newspaper asking for people who were interested in astronomy. A handful of men answered, resulting in the formation of the Mansfield and Sutton Astronomical Society.

21-Aug-2003 - McMahon takes a little trip -- to Mars (CTV) It's not every day I take a vacation on Mars. The moons of Jupiter, the spiral arms of a distant galaxy, the hypnotizing rings of Saturn -- all are more reliable destinations when it comes to the ever-important wow-factor. So who could blame an amateur astronomer for looking elsewhere when it's time to get away from it all? But tonight, I’m starting a two-week stretch of gazing at this normally unimpressive orange dot, and nothing else. The draw is a celestial performance with an opening act that included a slew of rocket launches and a headliner that promises the best view of the Red Planet in 60,000 years.

21-Aug-2003 - NASA seeks Mars requests (Federal Computer Week) As Earth comes closer to Mars this month than it has in nearly 60,000 years, NASA will give the public an unprecedented opportunity to suggest places on the Red Planet that an orbiting spacecraft should photograph. Operators for the Mars Global Surveyor spacecraft are taking suggestions online for new images from the Mars Orbiter Camera. Information about how to submit requests can be found on the new Mars Orbiter Camera Target Request Site, at http://www.msss.com/plan/intro.

20-Aug-2003 - Hubble To Snap Mars In Best Bi Annual Photo Op In 60,000 Years NASA's Hubble Space Telescope (HST) will make observations of the planet Mars on Aug. 26-27, when Earth and Mars will be closer together than they have been in the last 60,000 years. As soon as Hubble's high-resolution images of the Red Planet are received at the Space Telescope Science Institute (STScI) and are digitally processed by the Mars observing team, they will be released to the public and news media via the Internet.

19-Aug-2003 - A brighter Mars sparks marketing The biggest Mars encounter in more than 50,000 years is under way, and that has sparked an upsurge in products related to the Red Planet, ranging from books to telescopes. MARS MANIA is on the rise along with the Red Planet, which is heading toward an unusually close pass with Earth on Aug. 27. The two planets will be about 34.65 million miles (55.75 million kilometers) away from each other — as close as they’ve been since around the year 57,617 B.C. (the precise date is still under debate). Astronomers say the next time they’ll come that close again will be on Aug. 28, 2287.

18-Aug-2003 - Approach of Mars has Earth looking up (NorthJersey.com) Paul Contursi has his heart set on people going to Mars. For now, he will have to settle for the next best thing. On Aug. 27, Mars will swing nearer to Earth than it has been in almost 60,000 years, affording a rare, close-up peek at our colorful next-door neighbor. "Everybody with a telescope will be out that night, if the weather's good," said Contursi, president of the Mars Society of New York, half of whose 150 members are New Jerseyans.

17-Aug-2003 - Mars Watch: Where is the Red Planet Now?