SYDNEY, 28 August 2003 — Mars glowed as bright as the moon Wednesday when the red planet moved closer to the Earth than it has in the past 60,000 years and clouds that had threatened to spoil the view cleared, to the delight of thousands of onlookers.
Mars usually averages about 140 million miles away from Earth, but yesterday its orbit brought it about 34.6 million miles away, reaching the closest point at 5:46 a.m. The planet will not be so close to Earth again until 2287.
The southern hemisphere was favored for viewing because Mars was much higher in the sky there than in the north. In the United States or in Europe, Mars will not get 20 or 30 degrees above the horizon while in Argentina or Australia it will be at 70 degrees, nearly directly over the heads of viewers.
“Australia is as good as anywhere, but Africa would be very good as well,” said Nick Lomb, Sydney Observatory’s curator of astronomy. South of the equator, Mars’s high position in sky means fewer atmospheres to obscure the view, particularly through telescopes, he said.
Cloudy weather had threatened to spoil the view but the sky cleared over Sydney and thousands of people took advantage of the unexpected clear conditions over Sydney to seek a glimpse of the planet in the eastern sky. The view got better overnight Wednesday as Mars rose in the horizon.
Meanwhile, Mars encounter will be “hostile” for India say astrologers in New Delhi, that The proximity of the planet Mars, which will its closest to Earth for 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.” “I have been telling anyone who cares to listen that according to my calculations the earth will face serious and violent convulsions from July 29 onwards,” he said.
“Earth and Mars are drawing together for their closest approach in some 60,000 years on Wednesday. Apart from that, the entire planetary configurations are hostile to the world.
“As we can see India is already being sorely tested. There have been scores of deaths and more violence is to come.”
The gloom and doom prediction came as a massive stampede in the Indian town of Nashik on Wednesday left at least 39 people, mostly women and children, dead and more than 100 injured.
It was the second tragedy in India this week. On Monday, 52 people were killed in twin car bombings near a landmark monument and outside a Hindu temple in India’s financial capital Bombay.
