Mars will be closest to Earth on 27 Aug 2006?

Question

Is it is true? I get this information from a email. It say on that day we will be able to see two moon.

Answer 1

No, it is an e-mail hoax and what you got was disinformation from an e-mail!

The hoaxers are having a laugh at your expense. It is based on a distortion of what happened in 2003 (see the CNN News story below).

People are so gullible, they believe what a complete stranger says and don't check the facts for themselves,

Which would you rather believe: an anonymous, unsolicited e-mail or the official NASA website?

I went to NASA's Kids Website which told me:

"View in 2006
Mars begins the year as a moderately bright orange star in the constellation Aries. It will grow fainter through the end of summer, when it will disappear in the Sun's glare. Mars will re-emerge in the morning sky in late December. In March, it will pass quite close to Aldebaran, the star that marks the “eye” of Taurus, the bull. Mars and Aldebaran will look like twins, with near-identical color and brightness."

You don't need to be a genius to work out that if it is getting fainter it is getting further away, and if it is disappearing into the sun's glare that can only be because it is on the far side of the sun from us i.e. Mars' position in its orbit is 180 degrees away from our position in our orbit and we are pretty well the maximum possible distance apart in August 2006.

If you know (and you can easily look this up) that the Martian Year is 1.88 Earth Years then again you don't have to be a genius to work out that the one time it WON'T be near to us is an exact number of twelvemonths since the last time it was close to us in August 2003, We will be in roughly the same place as we were 3 years ago, but Mars will only have done approx 1,6 orbits (1.5957 in fact) around the sun in that time, which explains why it is now on the far side of the sun and at about the farthest distance away it gets,

The absurd idea that Mars could possibly look the same size as the Moon can easily be refuted. At its closest approach it is 35 million miles away, whereas the Moon averages 238,000 miles away i.e. the distances are in ratio >140:1.

The diameters are in ratio 2:1 however (Mars has a diameter of 6780 miles and the Moon of 3474 miles) and so the areas of the discs they present to the naked eye are in ratio 4:1 (pi R^2: pi r^2, where R = 2r)

So, think about it: how can the number of arc seconds that Mars' disc presents to the naked eye possibly be the same as the number of arc seconds that the Moon's disc presents? If the disc is 4 times the size of the Moon's disc, Mars would have to be only four times as far away as the Moon, i.e. only a million miles away, for that to happen.

and

(a) that never happens
(b) If it did happen, you'd soon know about it as giant tidal waves caused by Mars' gravity would sweep the Earth, making the Tsunamai look like a Sunday School picnic.

So not only can you look it up on reputable websites to discover this is nonsense, you can also work it out for yourself that it must be nonsense.

Much closer to the truth is that next March Mars will look about the same size and brightness as Aldebaran, in Taurus, the13th brightest star in the sky, And they are both red. They will be a matched pair, but Mars and the Moon will never be one.

HERE IS THE STORY CNN CARRIED IN 2003

Earthlings revel in Mars close-up
Planetary approach is nearest in 60,000 years
By Richard Stenger
and Jeordan Legon
CNN
Thursday, August 28, 2003

The last time the red planet was this close to Earth 60,000 years ago, man lived in caves.

No wonder when Mars and Earth synchronized their orbits a few minutes before 6 a.m. EDT Wednesday -- bringing them closer to each other than at any time in recorded history -- thousands of people around the globe went outside to take a peek.

"Knowing that this is once in a lifetime that I can see another planet with the naked eye, yeah, it's great," said Rebecca Horton, a stargazer from Sydney, Australia.

Astronomers say Mars, five times closer now than six months ago, is about 34.6 million miles away, making it the brightest nighttime object except the moon.

"It is possible to get some fairly close encounters every few years," said amateur astronomer Paul Shallow. "It does come around, but not this close."

But with the far-away planet getting so close, some hopeful watchers felt gypped by Mother Nature.

In Oakland, California, where hundreds of space fans paid $11 to attend the Chabot Space & Science Center's "Mars Mania Costume Party," clouds rolled in along with night sky Tuesday. Mars was fogged out, and there were no refunds.

But the good news is that Mars will remain a stunning nighttime attraction for weeks. Most sky watchers can see the planet, presently in the constellation Aquarius, in the southeastern sky soon after sunset, high overhead during the midnight hours and in the southwestern sky before sunrise.

Backyard telescopes may coax features out of the reddish, orange blur, including dark, mottled streaks, which inspired scientists of past centuries to envision intricate canals and advanced Martian civilizations.

The rare configuration of 2003 has stoked renewed, albeit not as fanciful, interest in Mars, which on average cruises 50 million miles farther from the sun than Earth does.

About every 26 months, the two planets pass relatively close to one another, during periods now known as opposition.

What makes this one noteworthy is that Mars, which follows an extremely elliptical or egg-shaped path, is currently at it closest point to the sun during its orbit.

Those two conditions, along with a few obscure celestial variables, have produced an astronomical chance of a lifetime, or several lifetimes actually.

Mars won't pass closer to Earth until 2287, according to astronomers.

Besides awing the curious, the alignment has motivated numerous governments to dispatch missions to the red planet.

Taking advantage of the shorter trip distance, two U.S. and two European probes set off earlier this year, all to arrive at the end of the year.

"Mars fever has caught, not only for amateur astronomers, who are getting their best look at the planet ever and that we'll ever have in our life, but also for professionals, as you know, with the [NASA] Mars Rovers and other spacecraft that are en route," said David Eicher, editor of Astronomy magazine."

Answer 2

*Sigh* The truth is that this e-mail is from 2003, keeps resurfacing every year and is the bane of my existance.

Mars came "close" to Earth in 2003. It was approximately 34,646,418 miles from the Earth. That's more than 34 million miles!! But it's considered "close" in astronomical terms.

Being so "close" to us, the planet brightened to a -2.9 visual magnitude. It brightness was only second to Venus (right now you can see Venus in the ENE around 5 am in the constellation of Gemini; Mars sets in the West very soon after sunset).

This "Spectacular View of Mars That You'll Never See Again In Your Lifetime" e-mail keeps resurfacing every year. The only way Mars would ever appear as large as a full moon would be if it was knocked out of its orbit and headed towards us. Not a happy thought.

The comet which impacted the Earth, changed the climate and eventually caused the extinction of the dinosaurs, was only 6 miles in diameter. Mars is approximately 4,213 miles in diameter, making it much larger than that comet. Neither Mars nor the Earth would survive a collision of the two planets.

Even though there's no "Spectacular, Never Before Seen and Never Will Again" event for Mars this August, go out and enjoy the night sky anyway.

Answer 3

What are you, some kind of skeptic? Well, if you read it in an email, but haven't heard about it anywhere in the news then gosh, it MUST be true, no?

Go outside on a clear moonless night, look overhead with binoculars and slowly move down towards the south. What you will see is far more impressive than a "second moon".

Answer 4

It was closest to Earth on August 27, 2003. This is old news being passed around again. The next time it will be close to Earth will be in 2007.

Answer 5

in basic terms to coach each and every person how stupid this question is, the night of Sunday August 27, 2006 occurs to be, by applying an thrilling twist of fate, a night while no bare-eye planet or moon is seen in any respect at night! With 5 bare-eye planets plus the moon, you will think of that a minimum of one could be seen someplace interior the sky at night. yet no longer Sunday August 27, 2006. no longer purely is our questioner lifeless incorrect approximately Mars, yet he strikes out on each and every person! no longer a single bare-eye planet or moon is seen at or approximately night, Sunday, August 27, 2006.

Answer 6

As i referred it in NASA website it seems that the information is true but the mars will surely as big as moon. because moon is only 350,000 km away and mars is 56,000,000 kilometers away. Even mars is bigger than moon it only about twice of size but see the distance ratio. its 150 times so mars ll be bright like a small red pearl.