Question about Mars' proximity to earth?

Question

My brother told me he saw on the news that mars will be closer to the earth than it's ever been in 5,000 years on Saturday, August 26, 2006. He told me the news said it would look as brilliant and large as the moon to human eyes, my parents also saw this on the news. I looked this up on the internet to try and confirm this but all the articles I've found are out-dated. I heard this is old news and mars came it's closest to earth about 3 years ago, although it didn't appear as near as the moon. Anyways... Has anyone heard what's really going on?

Answer 1

You are right to be sceptical. Let me try and disentangkle the truth from the garbled reportage which is being turned into rumours and being spread far and wide.

This a rehash of the 2003 story (see the CNN News story pf 28th August 2003 below) that is circulating on the internet, saying August 27th without naming a year and people assume it must mean 2006 when it doesn't.

You won't even be able to see Mars this Sunday,. Not unless you have X-ray vision like Superman and can see through the sun, as Mars is currently on the far side of the Sun at the moment and at least 220,000,000 (220 million) miles away, Over 6 times as far away as it was in 2003,

So the story couldn't be much further from the truth and Mars could not be much further from the earth.

It won't be visible again till December 2006 and the next close approach is not until 24th December 2007,

The e-mail that is circulating is a garbled version of what WAS true on August 27th 2003. When a close approach of 34,500,000 miles DID take place and that WAS the closest it has come for 60,000 years.

That hoax 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.

Such close approaches 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)

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? Mars would have to be only twice as far away as the Moon, i.e. less than half 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

Mars made the close approach you're talking about in August of 2003. The original article said that Mars would look as large as the moon--through a modest telescope. That is, Mars through a telescope would look the same size as the moon to the naked eye. An unfortunate print error somewhere along the way made it seem that Mars would appear the same size as the moon in the night sky, which is not the case. But every two years or so, Mars is highly visible in the sky, and every fifteen years or so, Mars makes a very close approach like in 2003. In fact, those very close approaches are mostly indistinguishable from each other by most casual observers, who would notice no real difference from the exceptionally close approach of 2003.

Answer 3

I don't have means of checking where I am but Mars was certainly very close a few years ago. It was a bright red object in the sky which was clearly a disc when viewed through a good set of binoculars. Mars is never going to appear as large as the moon, even at its closest Mars is much too far away.

From Wikipedia:

"On August 27, 2003, at 9:51:13 UT, Mars made its closest approach to Earth in nearly 60,000 years: 55,758,006 km (approximately 35 million miles)"

Mars is 6,800 km in diameter while the Moon is 2,400 km, but the Moon is 402,000 km away. So while Mars is about 2.8 times the size of the Moon, it is well over one hundred times distant even at its closest - so it cannot possibly appear anything like the same size or luminosity of the Moon.

Answer 4

As I recall, closest approach was back in 2003, when it was the closest in 60,000 (or so) years. That number comes from solar system models, so it can be a little off. The original estimate was closest approach in 73,000 years.

It's quite possible that August 26 will be the closest approach in 5,000 years, it's just that it isn't all that interesting. We had the closer approach in 2003, and on any given day, you're probably always closer to Mars than you were on some other day. In other words, you can always say on any given day that it was "the closest approach in xxx years." It just a way of manipulating the numbers to make them sound much more exciting than they really are.

Both Mars and Earth orbits are pretty circular, so Mars will never get closer than maybe 50,000,000 kilometers unless it gets knocked from it's current stable orbit. You will never see it as big as the moon. Even at the close approach in 2003, Mars was only 0.007 degrees in diameter as seen from the Earth. All you might see with your eye, depending on where you are, is a very small red dot. It's somewhat of a challenge to see Mars clearly even with a 6" telescope.

Mars is only about 1.5X as large as our Moon, but it's over 143X as far away. It's never going to look as big as the Monn from earth.

Answer 5

Mars is set till next April .

It's a hoax..
I heard about the Mars hoax and the answer is no . I'll tell you the real scoop on it . In 2003 it was in fact true ! Mars was the closest it's ever been on August 27 2003 .
The next year a New York Observatory reprinted the story again on the August 27th date for a joke . It was hown in the states on the local news and they said " The latest Mars craze is going on again this year , It was said to be started again by a new york observatory as a joke and well it's been listed as spam. And it currently is circulating the internet as a forward . We spoke to our local astronomers to get the story and they showed us where Mars is . Under the horizon till next year. t's completely not true this year , It did actually happen last in 2003 as we all know but this time it's a joke. an April fools joke . No madness intended . "
So it's been floating around for 2 years . Actually there is alot of it going around, crazy emails floating areound of it , observatory phones ringing off the hook .
It has turned into one big hoax . For further reading put in Mars Hoax into google & google news .
Next year the Mars Hoax will float again I bet !

Answer 6

I read : On Aug. 27 2003, Mars will be closer to Earth than in nearly 60,000 years. This "close approach," as it's being billed, has some people worried about potential dangers here on our planet. Check out the website below, I found it very interesting!

Answer 7

Mars is on the far side of the Sun this month and not close, or even visible, at all.

Answer 8

well the planets dont revolve in a circle-- more of an oval- so at some points they will meet closer--- i have heard that mars will be closer--- all the more reason we should be travelling up there

Answer 9

Another hoax, sorry

Answer 10

it's a hoax.