Is this going to happen with Mars?

Question

I recieved this e.mail today is this really going to happen.
The Red Planet is about to be spectacular!

This month and next, Earth is catching up with Mars in an encounter that will culminate in the closest approach between the two planets in recorded history. The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287. Due to the way Jupiter's gravity tugs on
Mars and perturbs its orbit, astronomers can only be certain that Mars has not come this close to Earth in the Last 5,000 years, but it may be as long as 60,000 years before it happens again.

The encounter will culminate on August 27th when
Mars comes to within 34,649,589 miles of Earth and
will be (next to the moon) the brightest object in
the night sky. It will attain a magnitude of -2.9
and will appear 25.11 arc seconds wide. At a modest
75-power magnification

Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye.
Mars will be easy to spot. At the beginning of August it will rise in the east at 10p.m.

Answer 1

No. That email has been going around for the last 2 years. It is not true. Check www.snopes.com to check out all your crap email that people claim to be true.

Answer 2

I was going along with all this until the bit where you said it will appear as large as the full moon.

If that is true standby for some really serious happenings here on earth. To appear that big it would have to be so near to earth that very great gravitational forces would effect both the Earth and Mars. There would almost certainly be huge earthquakes, volcanoes, tsunamis and huge tidal rises and falls. In short millions are likely to die! Indeed if they come that close mutual gravitational attraction would almost certainly happen leading to both planets being pulled into substantially different orbits and perhaps even towards each other and a disasterous collision.

Please, please tell me you got that bit wrong!!!!!!!

Answer 3

That E-mail has been around for a couple of years now and is not correct. Mars will not be that close this year, but it was that close in 2003. It did not look as big as the Moon to the naked eye though. It was 25 arc seconds wide, as the E-mail says, but the Moon is 1,800 arc seconds wide, so it It just looked like a bright star.

Answer 4

You're a day late..well...actually more like 1095 days late and a dollar short.

Mars Closest To Earth in 50,000 Years
From Nick Greene,
Your Guide to Space / Astronomy.

Mars Closest Approach to Earth
Mars Closest to Earth 2005 Update
August of 2003 is a special time for scientists and amateur astronomers. Our red neighbor, Mars will move closer than it’s been in 50,000 years. On August 27, 2003, the “red planet” will be less than 55.76 million kilometers (34.65 million miles) away from the Earth. That sounds like a huge distance, but in stellar terms, that’s a stone’s throw. Just six months ago, Mars was about five times that distance.

"Think of Earth and Mars as two race cars going around a track," said Dr. Myles Standish, an astronomer from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Pasadena, Calif. "Earth is on a race track that is inside the track that Mars goes around, and neither track is perfectly circular.

There is one place where the two race tracks are closest together. When Earth and Mars are at that place simultaneously, it is an unusually close approach, referred to as a 'perihelic opposition'."

The term “opposition” means that Earth and another planet are lined up in the same direction from the Sun. “Perihelic comes from perihelion, the orbital point when a celestial body is closest to the Sun. This event brings Mars to its perihelion to the Sun opposition with Earth at the same time.

Opposition occurs about every two years, when Earth with its faster orbit passes Mars. In 1995, the opposition brought Mars 101.1 million kilometers (62.8 million miles) from the Earth, twice as far as this most recent approach.

"It gets more complicated as the race tracks are changing shape and size and are rotating, changing their orientation," Standish explains. "So this place where the two tracks are closest together constantly changes, changing the opposition closeness as well. This is why a 'great' approach, like the one this month, hasn’t happened in 50,000 years. But with the tracks closer together now, there will be even closer approaches in the relatively near future."

Answer 5

LOL! No way! Just look at the numbers. If the same phenomenon is supposedly going to happen in 280 years, then how could it have been 5000 to 60 000 years since the last one? And to look as large as the Moon, it would have to practically share Earth's orbit. Someone is just having a bit of fun.

Answer 6

At the beginning of August? Let me check Stellarium...

EDIT: Nope. Right NOW it is only 3.6 arcseconds wide. How could it get 7 times as close in only one month and a half?

Oh, and if the Moon were 25 arcseconds wide, it would be about 3 million miles away from us... a far cry from the 250,000 miles way it is now.

EDIT2: You're right, but that was in 2003.

Answer 7

No. I hate idiots who send out emails like that. It is not possible for mars to look as big as the full moon with the naked eye, unless some outstanding event were to occur, sending mars into a much, much, much, much closer orbit. However, if that happened we would have a lot more to worry about than just a freakishly large Mars.

Answer 8

That did happen a couple years ago. Mars is best seen at opposition because the full disk is illuminated by the sun. Check an astronomy magazine for the best times to see it instead of relying on email.

Answer 9

I love this. And I like 3rd rock from the sun, regardless of whether it is original or not. I too sometimes wonder if I will reach such dizzy heights. And share with all the others Red Mars's sweet delights.

Answer 10

Sorry to disappoint you but Mars will NEVER look as large as the moon.

When ever you get an e-mail telling you something... Check it out first.