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CNN Live At Daybreak

Mars Slips into the Naked Eye's View

Aired June 20, 2001 - 08:13   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
CAROL LIN, CNN ANCHOR: In the meantime Mars -- planet Mars, a lot closer to Earth than it has been since 1988 -- just a mere 42 million miles.

COLLEEN MCEDWARDS, CNN ANCHOR: Yes, give or take -- right?

Well, the red planet will be at its biggest and its brightest tomorrow night. That's the first night of summer and Dave Hennen is on our Mars watch this morning. He's here with more. Tell us how we can see this, when and where.

DAVE HENNEN, CNN WEATHER: Yes, a little bit of viewing tips for you. You have some time, by the way. This goes on for about the next two weeks. The kind of interesting part of this is that it's going to be visible to the naked eye. The biggest event its had since 1988.

So here's what you want to do, a couple of things -- a couple of tips for you. First of all, you want to look to the southeast sometime tomorrow night. That's when we have the peak of it, and you're going to look to the southeastern skies. It'll be about 80 times brighter and about six times bigger than it was at the same time last July.

Best viewing times somewhere between 10:00 p.m. and midnight. Look to the southeast -- kind of a little prop for you, obviously a set of binoculars, a telescope, the best way to check this out. But what you can do as well is just hold up an empty toilet paper roll and what that does it kind of blocks the light -- all the extraneous light out and so you want to look right at Mars through that.

It'll be very visible for you. The kind of interesting thing, too, is this is not going to appear as red as you might expect; more of an orange, kind of a metallic color than red. And the reason for that, it's higher up in the sky. When it's lower in the sky, kind of a like a sunset, how the sun looks real orange, kind of has the refracting light and just the way this works out is that it will appear more yellow than it will red, which is what you expect of Mars.

MCEDWARDS: So, a toilet paper roll, huh? That's very high tech.

HENNEN: Yes, very high tech.

LIN: And cheap, but that's not how you look at the solar eclipse, which is coming up later this week. HENNEN: Right. Exactly, not a good idea to do.

(CROSSTALK)

HENNEN: Right.

MCEDWARDS: Thanks Dave so much.

HENNEN: OK.

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