The Sun comes in between the Earth and Mars-- and that means vacation for some NASA engineers

• Today (August 28), Mars and Earth will be on the opposite sides of the sun.
• The phenomenon is called a 'solar conjunction' which occurs every two years.
• NASA has ordered a 'command moratorium' from Monday (August 26) until September 7.

Today (August 28), Mars and Earth will be on the opposite sides of the sun, which means the Red Planet won't visible from the Earth for sometime. The phenomenon is called a 'solar conjunction', which occurs every two years, and that means vacation time for some engineers working at the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA).

As NASA describes it, "like dancers on either side of a huge bonfire, the two planets are temporarily invisible to each other."

NASA has ordered a 'command moratorium' from Monday (August 26) until September 7, which would mean engineers won't communicate with the roving vehicle scanning Mars for its potential to support life. There is also a pause on even the data relayed back from Mars to ensure that the sun's gases in between don't corrupt the radio signals.



"No one attempts to send new instructions to Mars during solar conjunction. It's impossible to predict what information might be lost due to interference from charged particles from the Sun, and that lost information could potentially endanger the spacecraft. Instead, prior to solar conjunction, engineers send two weeks' worth of instructions and wait," NASA explained adding that "many then consider it an opportune time to take a few, well-deserved vacation days."

The Washington D.C.-based space agency will have to wait until they rule out the possibility of interference from the sun. "It’s that time again,’ said Roy Gladden, manager of the Mars Relay Network at Nasa’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory in Pasadena, California. "Our engineers have been preparing our spacecraft for conjunction for months."

While data can be resent and repaired, corrupted commands aimed at Mars could have disastrous consequences for NASA’s Curiosity rover, according to Gladden.

Just yesterday, in a breakthrough of sorts, a new research said that Mars was 'warm and wet enough' to have massive rainstorms and flooding billions of years ago, making it perfect to support life.

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