Red planet fails to rouse Mars Hill

MARS HILL – Mars was the brightest object in the sky Wednesday night, with the red planet approaching Earth more closely than it has in nearly 60,000 years.

An unofficial survey of local businesses in Mars Hill on Wednesday revealed, however, that many residents seemed to have no plans to observe the historic event, possibly content to wait another 284 years for the next close encounter.

“I was going to try to take a look until my wife told me it was going to be four or five in the morning when you could see it,” an employee, who declined to be identified, at the Mars Hill One-Stop convenience store said.

Actually, Earth’s closest neighbor should be visible after the sky darkens at 8 p.m. for the next few days, but is the perceived threat of such an early wake-up what is keeping potential stargazers at bay?

Mars’ two tiny moons won’t be visible amid the planet’s pinkish glow, but perhaps Phobos and Deimos, named after mythical gods symbolic of fear and panic, are part of the problem.

Either that or the “Martians” of Aroostook County just don’t really care.

“I didn’t even know about it,” a clerk at Pete and Mo’s Pizzeria said about the stellar – er, planetary event.

The town, population 1,480, has no historical ties to the planet to prompt interest either, as it was likely named after Hezekiah Mars, an early settler who lived near the town’s resident mountain, according to Town Manager Raymond Mersereau.

Residents could travel to Presque Isle to gaze upon the scale replica of Mars that is part of the Maine Solar System Model, the largest scale model of the solar system in the world.

Mars Hill sits between Saturn, in Westfield, and Uranus, in Bridgewater, as part of the model that stretches 40 miles along Route 1, according to professor Kevin McCartney of the University of Maine at Presque Isle.

The opportunity to view the real thing doesn’t come around often, said McCartney, who developed the idea for the project.

“Mars and Earth are closer together now [more] than hardly ever,” McCartney said, adding that the current position of the two planets along their respective elliptical orbits is the reason for the improved visibility.

Some northern Mainers, however, appear unaffected by the apathy in Mars Hill and planned to observe the planet Wednesday night from the Francis Malcolm Science Center in Easton, according to an attendant at the center.

Mars’ pinkish glow should be visible for at least the next few weeks with clear weather, McCartney said.

Those surveyed in Mars Hill confirmed no plans to look for Mars during its next close encounter, in the year 2287.