Mars Attacks! day 1

Wow! what an overwhelming response! More than 2,000 (Correction, 10,000!) attended last night’s Mars Attacks! public demonstrations at Braeside park hosted by the ASV. I was there with my 3.5″ ETX-90 telescope (next to the 16″ and the 10″ telescopes!) but hey, a lot of people said that they could see more detail with the ‘baby’ telescope than the big ones… There was some confusion at the start of the night as everyone was trying to find out where to make their $2 donation, in the end they ended up giving us the money. It was a great night overall, the sky was crystal clear (so much for tonight) and everyone had a good time (I hope). Plenty of questions about Mars, along the lines of “… why is it orange in colour?”, “…are there people on Mars?” and “…what is the chemical composition of the southern polar cap?”

chris on August 23rd 2003 in Uncategorized

2 Responses to “Mars Attacks! day 1”

  1. [jc] responded on 25 Aug 2003 at 12:15 am #

    We’re still waiting for the answers of the last three questions.

  2. chris responded on 25 Aug 2003 at 6:05 pm #

    Let’s see, why is it orange, because of the oxidisation (rust) on the surface; are there any people there, Noooo (unless you can breath carbon dioxide and withstand -160C); and the chemical composition of the southern polar cap is carbon dioxide (dry ice). The southern polar cap is rapidly diminishing on Mars at the moment since we are now in late spring in the southern hemisphere.