One correction: The time a planet spends at perihelion is shorter
than the time spent at aphelion. So the total effect on temperatures
will NOT be equal and opposite as you stated. The speed in it's orbit
will be faster at perihelion than at aphelion.

Saul Levy


On 11 Jun 2006 18:42:23 GMT, CeeBee ceebee@novalidmail wrote:

(G=EMC^2 Glazier) wrote in alt.astronomy:

CeeBee I hate to throw this at you,but they claim Mars was closer to
the Sun "once upon a time" That means its moving further away in this
spacetime (weaker Sun radiation). Possibly the South Pole is in a
spacetime where it has more of a tilting plane Sun wise.(it happens)
Don't be a parrot and believe what others tell you. You can believe me.
I don'[t fudge,and always have good physics to back up my claims. Plus
Treb is only a membrane away Bert

You are some special cookie. "Don't be a parrot and believe what the
others tell you" and "they claim Mars was closer to the Sun once upon a
time" in one message...

Luckily it's not about believing. I don't conduct research myself.
Everything I tell here is stricktly speaking parroting what others have
told me and learned.

What _is_ important however is making a judgement about the sources one
uses. The story of Mars "probably" warming up is not a matter of
"believing" but of interpretation of results from observation. That's why
it's still a hypothesis, not a fact - as I explained in my former
messages.

On a sidenote, the orbit of Mars however is more elliptical than that of
the other planets surrounding it. Due to the gravitational tug of those
planets the Mars orbit is becoming more and more elongated over the
centuries. It means that in perihelion Mars gets _closer_ to the Sun and
in aphelion it gets _further away_ from the Sun.

Aphelion being further away however should compensate for perihelion: ice
caps would grow back to the original format during that colder aphelion.
However this doesn't happen. Ice caps melt away but don't grow back fully
next winter.

There's no proof that Mars once was closer to the Sun during its complete
orbit. It has been _speculated_ that this might have been the case as
expanation for indication of a once warmer climate - and there you have
the ongoing search for traces of past (liquid) water flows - but that's
certainly no "slam dunk" yet, and all there is to it.