Mars! - The Red Planet in Fact, Fiction and Lore

Join us for this fun Zoom event all about Mars presented by the Litchfield Hills Amateur Astronomy Club!

Throughout September and the first half of October, rising earlier each night and becoming brighter, is a brilliant orange-red dot in the southern sky.  What is that?  It's MARS!  Every 26 months Earth catches up to Mars and as the distance between them decreases Mars becomes much brighter.  On Oct. 13, 2020 Earth and Mars will be in line with each other and the Sun, an event called opposition.  For this opposition Mars is closer and higher in the sky than usual; viewing of the red planet won't be this good again until 2035. 

This talk will cover the "Mars Madness" of the late 19th and early 20th centuries and the hold Mars has in popular culture and some of the latest scientific findings.