Tuesday, August 25, 2015

A Mars Spectacular Coming Soon?

August 25, 2015

Good morning.  My goodness, have you noticed that there is only one more week left in this month of August?  It just seems like time is flying by even faster than it did last year.  Or maybe that's just because as you age, you realize just how short life really is.

I'm watching the Weather Channel, and it never ceases to amaze me at how cheerful the weather forecasters are while describing ongoing severe weather.   People and animals have lost their homes and for some, their lives, due to wild fires and severe floods.  Yet these happy, smiley people are getting all excited about the beautiful cloud formations and the amazing landscapes created by all the severe storms. 

Don't get me wrong, I think that nature is beautiful.  But, there is a time for getting excited over all this beauty.  I don't believe it is while you are describing the severity and devastation of ongoing wild fires and monsoon floods. 

Let me give you an update on yesterday's mail fiasco.  After investigating the matter, the Post Master called me back to say that the piece of mail had been delivered to a neighbor either Friday or Saturday.  For some reason, the neighbor opened the mail even though you could clearly see in the window on the envelope that the mail was not theirs.  Then yesterday, the neighbor put the piece of mail out for the mail carrier to pick up.  

Supposedly, this neighbor lived very close to us, so I'm wondering why they did not just bring it to us when they first realized that it was not their mail.   The Post Master said that in the future no altered mail will be delivered.  It will first be taken back to the Post Office, sealed in plastic and tagged with a "We're sorry" sticker before being delivered.

Have any of you received an item with this image in your email?  It tells us of an event called "Mars Spectacular" that is about to happen on August 27.  It says that we will be able to see two moons, one of which is really Mars, and that it will not happen again until 2287.


Well, I looked it up on Snopes, and found that this is really just a hoax.   The truth is that Mars did make an extraordinarily close approach to Earth almost twelve years ago on August 27, 2003, when the red planet came within 35 million miles of Earth.  This was it's nearest approach to us in almost 60,000 years. 

At that time, Mars appeared approximately 6 times larger and 85 times brighter in the sky than it ordinarily does.  One version of the story was often reproduced with an unfortunate line break, leaving some readers with the mistaken impression that Mars would look as large as the full moon to the naked eye.  They did not realize that would only apply to those viewing Mars through a telescope with 75-power magnification.

Although Mars' proximity to Earth in August 2003 was a rare occurrence, the red planet comes almost as near to us every 15 to 17 years.  Mars' last close approach was in December 2007, but even then it was still about 55 million miles away from us.  It won't be until the year 2287 that Mars will come closer to Earth than it did back in 2003.  (This information is from Snopes)

Now aren't you glad that you stopped by this morning?  Otherwise you might have been one of those folks out late tomorrow night waiting for a beautiful huge double moon to photograph.  If I hadn't looked it up, I'd have been one of those folks!

Well, that's all the news for this morning.  Now I'm going to enjoy my coffee while I catch up on some blog reading.  So, till tomorrow, Y'all have a fantabulous day.

Hugs, Edna B.

5 comments:

Stacey said...

I'm glad you got your mail. I wonder if it's that horrible neighbors of yours, otherwise why wouldn't they just take it to you. I get mail delivered to me that is my neighbors, and I take it to their house. It's possible to open something by accident, because sometimes I don't look at the address first, then for sure I would hand carry it to my neighbors and explain what happened. that is strange, just glad you got it!

smiekeltje said...

Good you looked it up about Mars. Still it is kind of amazing we are able to see other planets, by telescope or however.
I would love to see all kind of different birds in my garden, but it is hard to get them when you live in the middle of a city and lots of people have tiles in their garden!
Still we have some and I am happy to see them.
I will try to make a post on Blogger now, I am rather lazy lately with that, but just don;t feel in the right mood for it I guess.
Oh well, it will come back, some day.
You enjoy your day and try to have some fun, of whatever kind LOL.
Hug
Kyra

Nani said...

A neighbor opening a check and then not sending it back for a few days is suspicious or creepy. The post office needs to step up to 2015; we’re not that small-town anymore. The neighbor didn’t say, without opening it, to the carrier “Oops, this isn’t mine, it’s Edna’s from a few houses down.” And hand it back to the postal carrier who said, “Yep, you’re right! I delivered to Edna already, but I’ll stop back by.” The postal carriers were still called "the mailman" by everybody then too, or maybe just by his first name. Yeesh! Opened mail today should have always been something that went back to the post office if for nothing else to protect safety and privacy.

I was skeptical about the “Mars” photo from the get-go because I remember seeing Mars in 2003 and it being a big deal. It wasn’t as big as the moon then either. To the naked eye it was more a large, very bright star with redishness to the starlight. It was still –pretty cool to see, knowing it was a planet. :)

I’ll be back in a while to check for the Wednesday post. Now, I have some telephone shoe shopping to do!

Hugs, Nani

Unknown said...

Edna,
What a dreadful neighbor that did that to your mail. I really couldn't tell but had it been completely opened? They were probably being Nosy!!!!!!!!! I thought that it was a federal offense to open someone's mail. The Post Office went to the trouble of investigating the letter. If it was just torn a little then that is one thing. I have actually done that and flipped the letter over and realized that it wasn't mine. I never completely opened it all the way, but if the letter was actually all of the way opened and the contents could have been removed that is a violation of your privacy, and a federal offense and you could push for it to be investigated by a higher up official. Just a thought Edna. If that check was taken out of the envelope there is a routing number on that check and with the electronic fraud these days who knows what could happen there...

I posted a small post on WordPress blog this morning. I really do not like it there but I better get use to it because I set up another blog on Blogger.com and I am having the same issues there that I had before. I was really frustrated with that. I thought for sure that the problem would be solved with a new blog but it might be something in the settings that I don't know how to fix and support is not responding to my emails so for now I am using WordPress. I will try and look around at some other blogs. I thought maybe I might just sign up with Blogger with a new email and user name. Maybe that will work.

Our internet keeps crashing. I am not sure what the problem is. Jonathan has restarted it several times so I will close for now so I can post this comment in case it crashes again. Hugs to you and Pogo. Cisco has a playmate today, Karyn's dog Foxy is here and he and she sends greetings and licks...

The Queen Jester said...

I'm glad I decided to catch up on my blog reading just in time. I will look for this tonight when I leave pickleball.