from the editor
The reason , the imagination , and the voice of the heart ...
“ I asked the land , the sea , the depths and , among animals , the creatures that crawl . I asked the winds that blow and the beings that the sea contains . I asked the heavens , the sun , the moon and the stars and all the creatures around my flesh : My question was the look I was giving them . Its answer was his beauty .”
— Saint Augustine ( free translation to English ) by Marcelo de Oliveira Souza
Hi !!! Bright radiant star in the night sky . A Red Star . Arouses attention and admiration . In the mythology of several civilizations , he was associated with the gods of war . Nergal , in ancient Babylon . For Hindus , Mangal , Angakara and Kuja , names that in Sanskrit mean auspicious , burning coal and the just . Har Decher , red Horus , in ancient Egypt . Ares , for the Greeks . Mars , for the Romans . It is curious that before associating the god Mars with the Greek god of war Ares , he was for the Romans the god of agriculture . Another curiosity is that the city of Cairo , current capital of Egypt , has its name derived from Al Qahira , an ancient Arab name for Mars . In Greek mythology Ares , the god of war , had three children with Aphrodite , the goddess of love . Two of them were Phobos , fear , and Deimos , panic . They have always accompanied him on the battlefield . The Greek Aristotle ( 384-322 B . C .) observed an occultation of Mars by the Moon . During the occultation , the Moon passes in front of Mars . From this observation he concluded that Mars was more distant from the Earth than the Moon . The Danish Tycho Brahe , in the period from 1580 to 1600 , made the most accurate observations , at the time , of the position of Mars in the sky in relation to the constellations . Based on these data , the German Johannes Kepler published in 1609 his first two laws of planetary motion . The Italian Galileo Galilei observed Mars for the first time with the aid of a telescope . With the construction of better telescopes , more information about the planet was emerging . The Dutchman Christiaan Huygens , in 1659 , determined , for the first time , the size and the period of rotation of Mars . In 1877 the two moons of Mars , Deimos and Phobos , were discovered by the American Asaph Hall . In the same year , the Italian Giovanni Virginio Schiaparelli reported the observation of canali ( channels ) on the Martian surface . The term was translated into English as canals instead of channels . Providing the impression that it referred to artificial channels . This fact made us imagine the existence of a civilization on Mars . The American Percival Lowell stimulated by this idea built an observatory in 1894 . From where , for many years , he studied the planet Mars . He published three books , Mars ( 1895 ), Mars and Its Canals ( 1906 ) and Mars as the Abode of Life ( 1908 ). In these books , based on his observation of the channels , he imagines the existence of a civilization on Mars in the past . Few astronomers at the time observed channels on the Martian surface . Based on these ideas , several science fiction books were written . In the popular imagination the image of beings that lived on Mars emerged . Little green men ?! Humanoids ?! .... Approximately every 26 months the Earth is aligned with Mars and the Sun and located between the Sun and Mars . We say at that moment that Mars is in opposition . In 2020 Mars was in opposition on October 13th . Few days earlier , on October 6th , 2020 , Mars was Mars was at its closest approach to Earth . On that day it was approximately 62 million kilometers from Earth . Only on September 15 , 2035 , Mars will be so close to Earth . Due to the closest approach to Earth three missions were launched in 2020 towards the planet Mars : The China National Space Administration ( CNSA ) launched on July 23th , 2020 , the first Chinese mission to Mars : Tianwen-1 Mission . This mission consisting of an orbiter , a lander and a rover , entered orbit around Mars on February 10th , 2021 . The United Arab Emirates Space Agency ( UAESA ) launched on July 19th , 2020 , the first UAE mission to Mars : Hope Mission ( Emirates Mars Mission ). This mission consisting of an orbiter entered orbit around Mars on February 9th , 2021 . NASA launched on July 30th , 2020 , the Mars 2020 Perseverance Rover Mission with the first heavier than air
3