Cloud cover over NZ may prove a Mars bar

By SIMON COLLINS science reporter

Cloud is forecast to mar views from New Zealand tonight when Mars comes closer to the Earth than at any time since the Neanderthal era almost 60,000 years ago.

The red planet will be only 55,758,006km away from the Earth at 9.51 tonight - the closest it has been for 59,619 years.

A quirk of the two planets' elliptical orbits means that the distance between them fluctuates wildly between about 55 million and 100 million kilometres over a 16-year cycle.

Three cycles ago in 1956, more than 5000 Aucklanders caused an early case of traffic gridlock when they tried to get up Mt Eden to view Mars through telescopes.

But tonight the crowds may be fewer at the Stardome Observatory on One Tree Hill because the forecast is wet and cloudy.

Hawkes Bay and Fiordland might be a good places to gaze. Otherwise wait until the weather improves.

Only the sun and the moon seem to exert as much fascination as Mars. In classical times, Mars was the Roman god of war. The planet has been the subject of countless books, movies and television shows.

David Bowie wrote the bestselling album The Rise And Fall Of Ziggy Stardust And The Spiders From Mars.

Mars inspired H. G. Wells to write The War of the Worlds, about a Martian invasion and in 1938 Orson Welles created panic in the United States when he made a radio drama of the book.

Spaces at the observatory's Mars viewing sessions are full until early next week.

Astronomer Grant Christie said that on a clear night, the planet could be seen rising early in the evening in the east, peaking overhead just after midnight and setting in the west at sunrise.

"It's a reddy, orangey colour, looking like a very bright star," he said.