Is Mars really getting closer to Earth this month or is it a hoax?

Question

My friends have been getting Emails saying that Mars will be closer to Earth on August 27th than it has been for over 500 years and that it will appear as large as the moon to us?

Is this real?
Can we verify it?

Answer 1

Yes, as you suspected, it is a hoax. In general. I take the view about e-mails from unknown senders: If it sounds too good to be true, then it almost certainly isn't true!

Central to the hoax is the Baron Von Munchausen story that Mars will look as big as our Moon. Poppycock!

The boax is based on a gross 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 kms and the Moon of 3474 kms) 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, the 13th 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

The event has come and gone. On August 27, 2003, the orbital paths of Earth and Mars brought them to within 34.65 million miles of one another -- closer than at any other time in the past 50,000 years. Though Mars never actually appeared "as large as the full moon to the naked eye," the red planet did vividly dominate the night sky for a time, making 2003's "close encounter" a spectacular, "once in a lifetime" event indeed for astronomers, space enthusiasts, and ordinary observers alike.

Answer 3

It is all a hoax. Mars came closer to the Earth in 2003. It was easily visible with the naked eye. It will be a little closer than normal this month, but no where near as close as it was in 2003. Even at that time is was not as large as the moon in our sky.

Answer 4

Watch the Sky!

Never again in your lifetime will the Red Planet be so spectacular! This month and next month the Earth is catching up with Mars, 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.

The encounter will culminate on August 27th when Mars comes to within 34,649,589 miles 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, Mars will rise in the east at 10 p.m. and reach its azimuth at about 3 a.m. By the end of August when the two planets are closest, Mars will rise at nightfall and reach its highest point in the sky at 12:30 a.m. That's pretty convenient when it comes to seeing something that no human has seen in recorded history. So mark your calendar at the beginning of August to see Mars grows progressively brighter and brighter throughout the month. Share with your children and grandchildren. No one alive today will ever see this again.


Update::::!!!!!!!!!!

cording to a forwarded email circulating for the past few months, the planet Mars is due for an unprecedented close encounter with Earth on Saturday, August 27, when a wobble in its orbit brings the two planets closer together than they have been for thousands of years. "No one alive today will ever see this again," claims the email — which is a head-scratcher, considering that precisely the same thing supposedly happened two years ago.

Turns out, the message is a recycled flier from 2003. Even so, it's not entirely false. Earth and Mars will pass very close to one another again in October (not August) 2005, astronomers say, at which time their orbits will be a mere 43 million miles apart (slightly more than the 35 million miles separating them in 2003). It won't quite equal the once-in-a-lifetime show of two years ago, but the encounter will be "breathtaking" nonetheless, scientists predict, with the red planet outshining every object in the night sky save Venus and the Moon.

Answer 5

It was true in 2003. Right now, Mars is behind the Sun as viewed from Earth, so it can't be seen at all.

That email just goes to show how important it is to put the *year* in any date.

Answer 6

That big noisy flap about Mars being bigger and brighter than the moon is a LIE. Somebody's going around spreading this falsehood, probably through ignorance.

The close approach to Mars to Earth happened on 27 August 2003. Three years ago! If you missed it then, you'll have to wait for the next of Mars' closest passes.

Mars' orbit and Earth's orbit approach each other by a minimum distance of 0.372669 astronomical units. One astronomical unit is equal by definition to exactly 149,597,870,691 meters, which is about equal to 92,955,807 miles. So the orbits of Mars and Earth have a minimum separation of about 34,642,000 miles. In order for this minimum separation to be achieved, both Earth and Mars must be in exactly the right spot in their respective orbits, which is at 330.145 degrees heliocentric longitude for Earth and 330.337 degrees heliocentric longitude for Mars.

The technical way to refer to these passes of Earth by Mars is "Earth and Mars in conjunction with respect to the sun." Another way to say it is "Mars and the sun are in opposition with respect to Earth." It means the same thing, namely, Earth reaching the point in its orbital lap where it passes the slower Mars.

Mars and Earth have a conjunction about every 780 days (on the average). But typically the distance of closest approach is something like 54.8 million miles, which is what it will be on the NEXT conjunction on 18 December 2007. There will be no conjunction in 2006.

But the really close conjunctions occur at intervals of 15 or 17 years - usually. The special thing about the pass in 2003 was the fact that it was marginally closer than any other pass in recorded history. Not spectacularly closer. Only marginally so. It set a record that won't be broken until the year 2208 (and then not by much).

Here are the closest passes between Mars and Earth between 2003 and 2287.

27 August 2003, 0.3729 AU
30 July 2018, 0.3846 AU
9 September 2035, 0.3805 AU
13 August 2050, 0.3742 AU
17 July 2065, 0.3991 AU
23 September 2067, 0.3970 AU
28 August 2082, 0.3736 AU
31 July 2097, 0.3818 AU
12 September 2114, 0.3831 AU
15 August 2129, 0.3733 AU
19 July 2144, 0.3950 AU
25 September 2146, 0.4012 AU
29 August 2161, 0.3748 AU
2 August 2176, 0.3793 AU
13 September 2193, 0.3861 AU
18 August 2208, 0.3727 AU
22 July 2223, 0.3913 AU
1 September 2240, 0.3763 AU
6 August 2255, 0.3772 AU
15 September 2272, 0.3895 AU
20 August 2287, 0.3726 AU

Mars will be visible at other times, of course. But those are the days when it will be the brightest. But even when Mars is at one of these closest conjunctions, it is still much dimmer than the moon is.

Mars has an apparent magnitude at such times of -2.8. The moon's apparent magnitude, when full, is -12.6. The way the scale is set up, the more largely negative the number is, the brighter it is. Not only that, the scale is logarithmic, with a base equal to the fifth root of 100, or about 2.51186. So the full moon is 8318 times brighter than Mars ever gets.

Nor does Mars' size in our sky ever get anywhere close to the Moon's size. Mars' physical diameter is 6794 kilometers, so at it's nearest possible approach to Earth, it's angular diameter would be 25.14 arcseconds. The moon's angular diameter is about half a degree (it varies slightly), which is 1800 arcseconds. So Mars never gets bigger than about one seventy-first (1/71) of the moon's size.

Here are Mars' orbital elements.

Mars
a = 1.523688 AU
e = 0.093405
i = 1.8497 degrees
L = 49.5574 degrees
w = 286.5016 degrees
T = JD 2447385.9

And here are Earth's orbital elements.

Earth
a = 1.00000011 AU
e = 0.016761
i = defined zero
L = defined zero
w = 102.846 degrees
T = JD 2446799.26

There's a mathematical procedure to solve for the heliocentric positions of a planet for any time you choose, once you know the planet's orbital elements. You'll find that procedure given in great detail here:

http://www.jabpage.org/posts/trans2.html

After you've solved for the positions of Earth and Mars, each with respect to the sun, you can apply the distance formula (sometimes called the three-dimensional Pythagorean Theorem) to get the distance between Earth and Mars. If you program all that into a computer, you can just flip forward or backward in time until you locate the minimum distances and the associated calendar date.

The "T" number in the orbital element tables is the "time of perihelion passage," the moment when the planet is nearest to the sun. It is customarily given in Julian Date format, which is a rolling count of days since that day in 4004 BC, on which, Bishop Ussher's scholarly Bible research informed him, God created the world.

There are formulas that can convert Julian Date to Calendar Date, or vice versa. But it's probably easier to use somebody else's program, which you can find at

http://wwwmacho.mcmaster.ca/JAVA/JD.html
http://wwwmacho.mcmaster.ca/JAVA/CD.html

Don't believe everything you hear about celestial events. There's always some ignorant yahoo out to impress others with some sort of "special knowledge" that he supposedly has.

Answer 7

Some facts ...

Distance from moon to earth = 384 000 km
Distance from mars to earth = 43 000 000 miles
Diameter of moon = 3476 km
Diameter of mars = 6794 km
(all distances are approximate)
(distance to mars was the closest in Nov.2005)
source of data: www.nineplanets.org

Using Euclidean geometry, and assuming that it can be applied to stellar bodies :)

Diameter of mars, required to look moon's same size ...
= diameter of moon *Distance to mars / Distance to moon
= 626 420 km

that is ...
92.2 times its actual size! mmmmmm

also, you can check: www.adlerplanetarium.org

I hope, this helps to answer the question. (and that my calculations are correct)

Answer 8

You can easily verify it yourself either by perusing the mainstream news and science/astronomy news sites OR, by actually going out at night and looking at what IS visible.

Get out your binoculars on a clear moonless night. Start looking overhead and slowly take in what you see. Then slowly start to pan down to the south. Get to know your galaxy. This is the best time to view it.

Answer 9

YEs it is true,

The planets are not in a straight line that rotate arounf the sun. The planets spin around on different axis at different speeds. In the next month, Mars will be pretty close to Earth. It is on it's normal path and it isn;t like it's going to collide

Answer 10

All I heard was that on Saturday Little bit before dark there was going to be a meteor shower.

Answer 11

It did - in 2003 - not in 2006 though.

http://www.snopes.com/science/mars.asp