Unless you have access to a REALLY BIG telescope, you won't see Mars quite like this. However, all of this month, if you look towards the east-south east in the early evening, you'll see what looks like a redish LED light. Yup, that's Mars, and it's closer to the earth that it will be again for a very long time. Even though technically Mars is now moving away from us, it is still very close and will be for some time. Dr. Richard Hogland has had a long term interest in the Red Planet and will be posting his observations, speculations, and findings on his ENTERPRISE PROJECT website. Richard's ideas are controversial and considered to be far-out by many. But science has a long history of being very critical towards anything out of the ordinary. remember, the Holly Roman Catholic Church had Galilao under house arrent for years because of his comments that the Earth IS NOT the center of the Universe. So, keep an open mind when you read Richard's material.

From our vantage point here on Earth, it's sometimes difficult to understand the positioning of the planets in relationship to where we are. After all, on the clearest of nights, our closest astrological neighbor can be easily mistaken for simply a very bright star. Fortunately, easy to access websites, such as NASA's "Astronomy Picture of the Day" and software such as "StarryNight Backyard" can help anyone who knows how to point and click a mouse to see and understand our cosmic backyard.

The image above is from The Astronomy Picture of the Day and was taken on July 18, 2001 by the Hubble Space Telescope, one of the tax payer's best scientific investments ever made. For a complete explanation by a professional astronomer of the above image, click HERE or click the picture above to go to the Astronomy Picture of the Day site. There's an archive section that gives you access to every picture published on the site since June 16, 1995!

It couldn't be easier to begin to get a basic understanding of what's up in the sky. Each description is loaded with hypertext links with explanations of terms you may not be familiar with. And the pictures can make for awesome desktop pictures.

Enjoy! - Scott

NASA has been planning a maned mission to Mars for decades. The biggest challenge is distance and the slow speed of our space ships. The last time I heard, NASA was talking about a 6 to 7 month voyage EACH WAY!

Now consider this. The trip is being planned for the next time Mars is relatively close to the Earth. Check out the graphic below and it will give you a sense of the vastness of space between us and our closest planetary neighbor. The graphic below is only the "Inner Solar System."

Then look at the graphic at the botton to see how the Inner Solar System relates to the Complete Solar System. We'd better get working on Warp Drive systems real fast!

Note the small group of rings in the above graphic - THAT'S THE INNER SOLAR SYSTEM! Now look at the Inner Solar System that's above and short distance between the Earth and Mars that only happens every few years. Then consider that the trip to Mars, when it is the closest to us, will take 6 to 7 months. Then you realize that going to the Moon is like sticking you little toe into the Pacific Ocean. Going to Mars is like having only your foot in the water!

The top image is from my favorite astronomy website, NASA's "Astronomy Picture Of The Day." Getting a basic understanding of the Cosmos doesn't get any easier than this. Every day they post a new image with an explanation from a professional astronomer with hyper links to subjects that you can explore. So all you have to do to better understand the caption is click the link and you're on your way. There's a search engine and astronomy images sorted by subject. Before you know it, you'll be wanting a telescope. Here's the address, or click the graphic.

The two above graphics are screen shots from StarryNight Backyard. For more information about this software, click HERE. StarryNight Backyard is bargan priced at only $29.95 for the basic educational version - $49 for the StarryNight Digital Download version, and $79.95 for StarryNight Backyard, and $179.95 for StarryNight Pro