Given that August 27th was when Mars was supposed to be as big as the Moon, my old buddy Rob Sparks let me know that even cartoonists are in on the joke.
Tip o’ the cartoonist’s beret to Rob Sparks, duh.
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About Bad Astronomy
Phil Plait, the creator of Bad Astronomy, is an astronomer, lecturer, and author. After ten years working on Hubble Space Telescope and six more working on astronomy education, he struck out on his own as a writer. He's written two books, dozens of magazine articles, and 12 bazillion blog articles. He is a skeptic and fights the abuse of science, but his true love is praising the wonders of real science.
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August 30th, 2006 at 1:19 pm
That’s a good one! May be us non-spammers should start sending this around every August!
August 30th, 2006 at 5:08 pm
Hahaha!
The art style on that one reminds me of the The Far Side.
August 30th, 2006 at 5:11 pm
That was cute. Was it from one of the … for Dummies books? It looks a bit like that style.
August 30th, 2006 at 6:00 pm
Anyone got any Mars repellent?
August 30th, 2006 at 7:37 pm
back in ’03 at the time of the actual closest approach there was a great cartoon with a telescope perched on top of earth and mars looming close, looking like a red Death Star. From the telescope came the caption ‘That’s no planet!’
I wish i could find that cartoon again…
August 30th, 2006 at 7:44 pm
Perhaps the cartoon suggests that the astrologers got it right for once…Mars IS in the seventh house. (Yeah, I know — the song says the Moon is supposed to be in that particular house.)
August 30th, 2006 at 9:41 pm
I remember seeing that cartoon before in 2003 when the press were hyping the “Mars is going to be at its closest point to Earth than in the last upteen-bazillion-zillion years” stories. Wish I could remember the name of the strip.
August 30th, 2006 at 9:52 pm
Cute. It reminds me of this classic Onion article:
New Solar System Discovered Four Feet from Earth
August 31st, 2006 at 6:09 am
Thanks for the link to the Onion article, Supernova. I hadn’t read that one before, it really cracked me up!
August 31st, 2006 at 9:17 am
I’ll second the thanks for the Onion article! That was excellent. It is even more appropriate today than when it was published.
Wayne
August 31st, 2006 at 9:27 am
Triangleman Says: “I remember seeing that cartoon before in 2003 when the press were hyping the “Mars is going to be at its closest point to Earth than in the last upteen-bazillion-zillion years†stories. Wish I could remember the name of the strip.”
It looks like “Close to Home”, a strip that is really funny, but I don’t especially care for because the art is so ugly.
- Jack
August 31st, 2006 at 5:53 pm
It is in fact a “Close To Home” cartoon…
August 31st, 2006 at 7:04 pm
“And won’t you aaaalllll have a great big belly laugh on the day when Mars really DOES pay us a visit and chomps down on Earth like a cosmic Pac-Man. By the way, yer “8″ must’ve fallen over.”
——–
Hmm. Ignorance is NOT bliss. Thanks for the great articles. When my email got gently pummelled by “fwd:CRAP” I included a link to your site with my reply. Even Snopes debunks it, but do people check that? And yep, I have to reply to these things, because I don’t want it on my conscience that I let a few friends and family members wallow in hogwash.
I wonder what Ray Bradbury thinks? Bet he’s getting a good chuckle too.
It’s great to see this issue addressed in the comics, where thinkers and non-thinkers alike congregate. If this is the ONLY WAY to get through to these folk…