{"id":19077,"date":"2009-11-10T06:26:08","date_gmt":"2009-11-10T11:26:08","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/?p=19077"},"modified":"2009-11-10T07:29:05","modified_gmt":"2009-11-10T12:29:05","slug":"red-planet-with-a-touch-of-blue","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/red-planet-with-a-touch-of-blue\/","title":{"rendered":"Red Planet With a Touch of Blue"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s an election week for many places in the country, and that means a return to those belabored favorite terms of the punditocracy: Red States and Blue States.<\/p>\n<figure style=\"width: 223px\" class=\"wp-caption alignleft\"><img loading=\"lazy\" class=\" \" title=\"Photo of Microscopic rock forms indicating past signs of water, taken by Opportunity.\" src=\"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/www.planetwavesweekly.com\/resources\/images\/nov5-09-14.jpg?resize=233%2C231&#038;ssl=1\" alt=\"Photo of Microscopic rock forms indicating past signs of water, taken by Opportunity.\" width=\"233\" height=\"231\" data-recalc-dims=\"1\" \/><figcaption class=\"wp-caption-text\">Photo of Microscopic rock forms indicating past signs of water, taken by Opportunity.<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<p>Well, this week the planet Mars offers a chance to see the Red\/Blue divide on a planetary scale, accomplished with the complete absence of politicians.<\/p>\n<p>Our friends at <a href=\"http:\/\/www.spaceweather.com\/\" target=\"_blank\">SpaceWeather.com<\/a> have an interesting item about Mars, which is lining up for a close fly-by of Earth in January, known to astrology fans as Mars retrograde in Leo. This is giving backyard astronomers with adequate telescopes a chance to see what appears to be the Red Planet blushing blue, as illustrated by a photo taken by Joel Warren of Amarillo, Texas.<\/p>\n<p>What you see in the photo is the northern polar ice cap on Mars, visible as a blue swatch atop the ruddy planet. There&#8217;s water ice in there, although it&#8217;s often under a layer of <a href=\"http:\/\/en.wikipedia.org\/wiki\/Geology_of_Mars#Polar_ice_caps\" target=\"_blank\">carbon dioxide frost<\/a> (i.e., dry ice).<\/p>\n<p>You know, it occurs that there may be an astronomical solution to the generally intolerable lack of civility in politics. After all, we have a Red Planet and a Blue Planet. Could it be as simple as Red Staters getting a vacation on Mars and leaving the Blue Staters on Earth? Or maybe vice versa, to allow each to experience a home world of the opposite chromatic character?<\/p>\n<p>Or maybe the politicians need a trip to Mars, before they finish trashing the Earth.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>It&#8217;s an election week for many places in the country, and that means a return to those belabored favorite terms of the punditocracy: Red States and Blue States. Well, this week the planet Mars offers a chance to see the Red\/Blue divide on a planetary scale, accomplished with the complete absence of politicians. Our friends &#8230; <a title=\"Red Planet With a Touch of Blue\" class=\"read-more\" href=\"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/daily-astrology\/red-planet-with-a-touch-of-blue\/\" aria-label=\"More on Red Planet With a Touch of Blue\">Read more<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"generate_page_header":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19077"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=19077"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/19077\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=19077"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=19077"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/planetwaves.net\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=19077"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}