+ Mars | 2 Years Late

Man! I am 2 years late!

What I read in the NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab website was indeed true that the Planet Mars being closest to earth was in 27 August 2003! But I kept hoping that the email was right.

The email I received from a friend was a mistake made by someone who forwarded the email thinking it was this year.

I guess the date 27 August was enough to excite him to spread the news excerpt since it did not contain the year within the article.

It got me excited too when I read it. It got my son all excited to fix his telescope to view it up close. It got both of us ventured into the night "stalking" at the night sky to catch a glimpse of Mars since it would have been as big and as bright as the moon.

After several nights, I decided to SMS him for more details as he was checking with his Astronomy Club Pesident-cousin when we talked a week before.

He replied an email to me today confirming of the mistake. Man!

How on earth did I missed the once in a human-of-this-lifetime phenomenon past me unnoticed? It must have been big in the newspapers and media, and maybe the TV news before and after it.

How on earth was I so oblivious of the whole event? How come no one at work or family members not talked about it? Was there actually coverage on this in Singapore?

What a wasted opportunity for me as a human to witness one of God's greatest wonders! My son will be very disappointed when I break this news to him tonight.

Now, our best sources of information and pictures would be NASA's JPL and Hubble Site websites.

Anyway, the positive side of it was that I get to spend some time alone with my son sharing same interest, and got excited with the same things. Cool!