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一生一次和火星亲密接触



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　　古今中外和外星人有关的科幻小说和电影，十之八九有一个共同点：外星人都来自火星（Mars)，而且，大概不会是善类。
　　这样的推理能不能成立，地球人的天文研究还没有达到能下判断的时候，可这种“传言”实际上延伸出一个问题：地球人对于火星，是既熟悉又陌生，好像找到一些答案，却又产生更多疑问。
　　火星是地球人耗资最多进行探索的行星，因为地球和火星有一些相似的地方，让地球人一直认为火星上应该也有生命，只是这些年来探索得到的结果，却把应该渐渐熟悉的阶段推向更大的陌生领域，火星至今还是地球人无法完全了解的“近邻”。
　　在太阳系（Solar System）九颗行星当中，火星排行第四，和“老三”地球的距离第二近（离地球最近的行星是金星（Venus））。火星离地球到底有多近呢？天文学家提供的数据是：不固定，可以长达1亿138公里，也可以短至5500万公里。
　　8月27日晚上8点（新加坡时间），火星将运行到6万年来距离地球最近的位置。到时候，火星和地球的距离约为5576万公里，大概是太阳和地球距离的三分之一，火星亮度（magnitude）将达到负三等，是一个非常罕见的天文奇观。
　　天文学家把这种天文奇观称为“火星大冲”（Mars Opposition），而这样的“火星大冲”在公元前5万5534年前发生过一次，而下一次要再看到，就要等到2287年8月28日了。
　　2287年距离现在是284年，这一代的地球人何其幸运，有机会把火星看得最清楚，对于火星，也会有更大的遐想。
　　今天，在地球人等待和火星进行最“亲密的接触”的当儿，让我们先来了解，这颗和我们关系密切的行星。


1.　　火星名字的由来

　　古罗马帝国（公元前27年至公元476年）人因为火星既亮又红，令人想起血和战争，因此把它命名为战神马尔斯（Mars）。至今，我们仍沿用这个名字。实际上，在古代，不同民族的人都给予火星不同的名字：巴比伦人称它为死神（内尔加尔），希腊人则为它取名为战神（阿瑞斯）。可不管人类为火星取一个怎么样的名字，它都让人类想起战争和混乱。


2.　　地球和火星相似的地方

　　－地球和火星都属于类地行星（terrestrial planets）。
　　（类地行星的家族还有水星(Mercury)和金星(Venus)。类地行星的特点是，由较重元素的固体组成，通常体积较小。木星(Jupiter)、土星(Saturn)、天王星 (Uranus)和海王星 (Neptune)，则全都是由气体，主要是氢（Hydrogen)和氦(helium)等构成的巨大类木行星 (jovian planets)）。
　　－地球和火星一样有四季，不过火星每一季的长度是地球的两倍。
　　－火星的一日是24小时又41分钟，和地球的24小时非常接近。
　　－火星可能和地球一样，也有水。这也是地球人从70年代开始就一直致力探索火星的最重要原因。如果火星真有水，它很可能就会成为适合人类居住的。

3.　　地球人对火星进行探索

　　早在1960年，地球人就开始对火星进行探索，然而，不管是由前苏联还是美国派出太空船，都以失败收场。
　　比较成功的一次任务是在1965年7月，美国水手四号成功地完成火星近天体探测飞行，传送第一批详细的火星照片。
　　真正让地球人感到兴奋的，则是美国维京号在1976年时传回来的照片，照片显示火星上的奥林巴斯山西北面的悬崖好像被水侵蚀而成。
　　可是，因为经费问题，至维京号在1976年传回照片之后，地球人再也没有进行任何火星有关的太空任务，一直到1988年和1992年，前苏联及美国再派出太空船执行火星任务，可是，太空船最后都在漫漫太空里失踪了。
　　这个火星是否有海水的迷，一直要到1999年美国派出的环球探索者号所拍回的照片才得到解答，近距离拍摄到的非常清晰的照片显示，悬崖显然不是由海水侵蚀而成的，令火星曾有海洋的说法出现动摇。
　　然而，环球探索者号在2000年6月拍到的一些高解象度的照片，却带来了一些发现。根据这些照片，科学家可以清楚看到水沟、水道和三角洲，相信是由高速水流造成的，虽然不太清楚是何时造成的，但“火星上有水”的说法，又再出现实证说明。根据科学家的研究，火星的水应该是被封在两极或藏在地底，这一次的发现，也大大地提高了火星曾经有生物存在的可能性。
　　事实上，地球人在很早就对火星上是否有生物产生很大的好奇：10万年前，有一颗来自火星的岩石坠落在地球北极。人们在陨石里发现了，可能是生命所留下的痕迹化石，这化石是30亿年前在火星上形成的，这是不是表示，火星在很久很久以前，有生命存在？
　　从2001年到未来，地球人已经为火星任务提出具体目标，对火星进行表面土地的分析及地表探测，可以的话，也希望能够收集火星的岩石标本，带回地球进行研究。


4.　　要怎么样才可以看到火星？


　　科学馆副馆长张锦球说：“用肉眼来看，其实火星在8月27日前后的大小都差不多。除了月亮外，火星不是天空中最大的星星。但它会比一般的星星显得更红。”
　　这里告诉大家看火星的几个步骤：
　　·先找一个在东南（southeast）方向没有被高楼遮挡的地方，这个地方最好也没有耀眼的街灯。
　　·在晚上9点之后可以开始观察了，第一个小时内由于火星刚刚从地平线“升起”，寻找时可能有一点难度，可之后情况就“明朗”多了，你会发现有一颗不会眨眼的“星星”，看起来又比一般的星星大，又呈橙黄色，那就是火星了。
　　有兴趣的朋友，也可以在本月30日晚上7点30分至12点，参加科学馆所举行的火星派对，通过望远镜来观赏这个数万年罕见的天文奇观。

Amateur Status Advantage


Professionals observed big things far away and published in the prestigious Astrophysical Journal—which, as if to rub it in, ranked papers by the distances of their subjects, with galaxies at the front of each issue, stars in the middle, and planets, on the rare occasion that they appeared in the Journal at all, relegated to the rear. Amateurs showed schoolchildren the rings of Saturn at 76 power through a tripod-mounted spyglass at the State Fair. Inevitably, a few professionals disdained the amateurs. When Clyde Tombaugh discovered Pluto, the astronomer Joel Stebbins, usually a more charitable man, dismissed him as “a sub-amateur assistant.” There are of course professionals who kept up good relationships with amateurs, and amateurs who did solid work without fretting over their status. But generally speaking, the amateurs lived in the valley of the shadow of the mountaintops. Which was odd, in a way, because for most of its long history, astronomy has been primarily an amateur pursuit.


Nicolaus Copernicus, who in 1543 moved the Earth from the center of the universe and put the Sun there instead (thus replacing a dead-end mistake with an open-ended mistake, one that encouraged the raising of new questions), was a Renaissance man, adept at many things, but only a sometime astronomer. Johannes Kepler, who discovered that planets orbit in ellipses rather than circles, made a living mainly by casting horoscopes, teaching grade school, and scrounging royal commissions to support the publication of his books. Edmond Halley, after whom the comet is named, was an amateur whose accomplishments—among them a year spent observing from St. Helena, a South Atlantic island so remote that Napoleon Bonaparte was sent there to serve out his second and terminal exile—got him named Astronomer Royal.


Even in the twentieth century, while they were being eclipsed by the burgeoning professional class, amateurs continued to make valuable contributions to astronomical research. Arthur Stanley Williams, a lawyer, charted the differential rotation of Jupiter’s clouds and created the system of Jovian nomenclature used in Jupiter studies ever since. Milton Humason, a former watermelon farmer who worked as a muleteer at Mount Wilson, teamed up with the astronomer Edwin Hubble to chart the size and expansion rate of the universe. The solar research conducted by the industrial engineer Robert McMath, at an observatory he built in the rear garden of his home in Detroit, so impressed astronomers that he was named to the National Academy of Sciences, served as president of the American Astronomical Society, a professional organization, and helped plan Kitt Peak National Observatory in Arizona, where the world’s largest solar telescope was named in his honor. (From: The Best American Science & Nature Writings)


Amateurs have, for millennia, led the way to exploring the heavens, and despite a disadvantage in the size, technology and positioning of telescopic equipment, continued to compete well with professionals throughout the 20th century. How were they able to compete? Because astronomy is all about curiosity, diligence, and patience—the attributes of successful investors and business analysts.


The amateur investor has every right to believe he or she can compete toe to toe with professional money managers. From my humble office overlooking the Singapore River, with only an Internet connection and a bookstore discount card I have been able to achieve 40% annual total returns over the last several years, soundly outperforming AsiaPacific fund managers with teams of analysts, billions of dollars worth of influence, board seats, Bloomberg screens, and company Mercedes. Well, I wouldn’t mind the company Mercedes, but all the other bells and whistles have not added to fund investor’s fortunes. In fact, it certainly costs them dearly.


The heavens don’t change very quickly, and neither do businesses. An amateur astronomer and an amateur investor have this distinct advantage of slow paced phenomena to observe. Up-to-the-second news flashes and streaming stock prices don’t help improve portfolio returns any more than up-to-the-minute star charts would help astronomers. Amateur astronomer Stephen James O’Meara, son of a Cambridge, Massachusetts lobster fisherman, while still a teenager, saw and mapped radial “spokes” on Saturn’s rings that professional astronomers dismissed as illusory—until Voyager reached Saturn and confirmed that the spokes were real. He determined the rotation rate of the planet Uranus, obtaining a value wildly at variance with those produced by professionals with larger telescopes and sophisticated detectors, and proved to be right about that too. He was the first human to see Haley’s comet on its 1985 return, a feat he accomplished using a 24-inch telescope at an altitude of 14,000 feet while breathing bottled oxygen. Fortunately for the amateur investor, no modern tools of stock analysis have proven more valuable than good judgment and business sense (common sense).


The 3 May 2004 Straits Times Money writer, Lee Su Shyan says, "Few retail investors have the time and resources to conduct the kind of in-depth research that a professional fund manager can accomplish, so retail investors often don't know what questions they need to ask." I think the real reason few fund managers attend AGMs is because few fund managers really care about the business and management, as their turnover ratios clearly show. If you don't own a business long enough to collect dividends, why would you care about dividend policies? If you don't own a business long enough for a strategy to unfold, why would you care about the long-term business outlook? If you can buy IPO placement shares and dump them a day later, how important is the AGM? How many funds owned Informatics and failed to ask management the right questions?


One or two in ten fund managers outperform relevant indexes over the years, so why are they held up as geniuses with all the 'intelligent questions'? I don't know how many fund managers Lee Su Shyan knows, or how many AGM were personally attended to write such an article? I attended eight AGM during April for businesses held by our WS8 Portfolio at WallStraits, and in general I would say retail investors are long-term focused, and informed enough to ask probing, relevant, and 'intelligent' questions of their management. There are the occasional 'share price' questions and the occasional nonsense questions, but these are the exception, not the rule.


Big professionally managed funds, despite their sophistication, suffer under the weight of billion dollar portfolios, while amateurs can nimbly accumulate small stakes in a handful of enticing micro-cap businesses not even on the fund radar screen. Just like the Cold .45 was an equalizer in the Wild West, the Internet is the equalizer for small investors, placing an incredible amount of business and industry information at your fingertips. Interpretation, not information, is the limiting factor for investors today. Businesses evolve quarter-to-quarter and year-to-year. Long-term trends in sales, earnings and intelligent capital allocation that indicate strong shareholder-orientation is what slow-motion observers search for. And better than amateur astronomy, amateur investing pays well!



Anyone who wants to be a truly great observer should start with the planets, because that is where you learn patience. It’s amazing what you can learn to see, given enough time. That’s the most important and critical factor in observing—time, time, time—though you never see it in an equation.


-- Stephen James O'Meara