Will Mars look as big as the moon to the negative eye?

Question

I recieved a e-mail stating in the next month Mars will appear as big as the moon in the sky...Is this true or not?

Answer 1

That e-mail has done the rounds every August since 2003. August gets called the silly season as there is not much news and so people make news up and recycle old news.

Andromeda (the answerer not the constellation) is right, Mars won't even be seen in August. So the issues of big or small, and bright or dim don't arise, And sorry MO, you are recycling old news too, That October close approach you report was in 2005, And the next close approach won't be till December 2007,

If I can explain?

Mars is on the far side of the sun right now some 200 million miles or more away and won't even be visible again till December. So the story couldn't be much further from the truth and Mars could not be much further from the earth.

Mars was the closest it has been for 60,000 years on 27th August 2003, There won't be another such Very Close Encounter till 2287 but there is a Fairly Close Encounter every 26 months.

An e-mail is going around suggesting that the close approach ("perihelic opposition") of Mars and Earth of 27 August 2003 (see the CNN News story below) will occur THIS 27th August, 2006. It won't!

Such perihelic oppositions occur once every 26 months, The Martian Year is 1.88 Earth Years so when we have done 2 and a bit orbits Mars has done 1 and a bit orbits and we are close together again.

Therefore, after an August 2003 Close Encounter, the next one was in October 2005 and the next Close Encounter after that is not until December 2007,

There is no close approach this year.

Central to the hoax going around is the Baron Von Munchausen attention-grabbing fairy story that Mars will look as big as our Moon. Unlikely and untrue,

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-but-one time it was close to us on 27th 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 fantastical 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. less than 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."

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Final comment from me: the "Let's wait and see if its true on August 27th" argument is self-deluding, Mankind has been calculating and predicting planetary orbits and positions with increasing precision for 2000 years now, Kepler's 3 Laws of Planetary Motion have been known for 400 years,

The answer is known now. And there is no "well, it might be true" uncertainty about it. You can look it up on the NASA and other reputable websites. Taking refuge in "well, it might be true" is really just a way of refusing to admit and acknowledge that you (and thousands of others) have been duped.

Answer 2

Damnit, NO! This question has been asked a million times. NO, Mars will not looks bigger than a red dot in the sky next to the moon. If Mars got close enough to be that big, Earth would be royally screwed.

Answer 3

I got a similar e-mail. In mine, however, you have to read carefully and it says that Mars will look as big as the moon is to the naked eye WHEN VIEWING MARS with the use of a relatively low magnification telescope!
To get to your question- no, Mars will not be as big as the moon to the naked eye.

Answer 4

It is a hoax perpetrated by people recycling old news from 2003, without putting a date on it.

Mars is far away right now on the other side of the Sun and won't be seen again in this neck of the woods until December,

Answer 5

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Answer 6

You mean naked eye, right?

No, it's not true. Mars never has appeared that big, and it never will. The email is a hoax and has been circulating the 'net since 2003. Read the truth here:
http://www.snopes.com/science/mars.asp

Answer 7

no but in october it will be as close to earth as it was in 2003 which is about 69 million miles away so it will be the next brightest thing in the sky after the sun, moon, and venus.

Answer 8

No. It was true in 2003. Check out www.snopes.com and do a search for Mars.

Answer 9

No it's false, don't believe everything chain letters say, they're 99.99999$ false. There was a case like that in 2003, but that won't happen again for a long, long time. It's not true, and it won't be in your lifetime.

Answer 10

If you look at it with a positive eye you will see it upside down.

Look through a telescope and wave at the Martians. They are very friendly. The Moonians are tired of us so they hide.

Answer 11

If it get as big as the moon, we'll be in a bit of a fix, I'd think.