A by now familiar scene but this time viewed from the Martian surface:
stars seen clearly and abundantly when there has been no wind;
"...the Milky Way frozenly cataracting through silence..." (p. 58);
Deimos, glimmering and moving slowly (not fast as in ERB);
Earth, "coruscant blue..." (ibid.)
One of Isaac Asimov's Black Widower stories turns on the observation that, from Mars, Earth's Moon should be visible as an orb alongside Earth.
5 comments:
Kaor, Paul!
That is new to me, that the Moon of Earth can be seen alongside the latter from Mars! I would have thought Luna too small to be seen like that from Mars.
Sean
Sean,
The Moon is pretty big as we have observed. The Earth-Moon system is really a double planet.
Paul.
Kaor, Paul!
Granted! Earth/Luna really do form a double planet. Still, I'm surprised the Moon could be seen from Mars.
Sean
I recall reading that the moons of Jupiter are bright enough to be seen without a telescope if their light wasn't drowned out by the light from Jupiter. I *think* I read that some people with *particularly* good eyesight can resolve them as separate points of light from Jupiter.
So it doesn't surprise me at all that the moon would be visible from Mars as another point of light distinguishable from earth.
I just calculated that from Mars the angular separation of the Moon from the Earth would often be 10 minutes of arc or more, or more than 1/3 of the apparent width of the moon as viewed from the earth. So that also fits the claim that the earth-moon system would be visible as a double body from Mars.
If there had been a Martian civilization they would have been convinced of a sun-centric rather than Mars-centric view before they had telescopes.
Kaor, Jim!
And I've sometimes wished the Moon had been like Mars in size, gravity, atmosphere, etc. Then there would have been a planet much nearer to us for colonizing, exploring, developing. Being so much nearer the Sun than Mars is might also make such a planet far more terrestroid.
Ad astra! Sean
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