a chat with Peters

While visiting the Dunnville race track, Peter H asked me about Mars, in relation to a recently received email. Ah, another victim of the Mars hoax spam prank.

Then Peter C joined in the conversation.

I explained, once again, that the email was spam and that we were moving away from Mars...

It was an impromptu tutorial on planetary mechanics. I discussed the common orbital plane (or ecliptic) for the planets (pointing out that Pluto varies far from it).

Where's an orrery when you need one...