tomorrow Mars is supposed to be as big as the moon, is this true?

Answer 1

No it is not. It's a whopping big porky pie, Did you look to see last night and find Mars almost as big as the Moon, then? If it were true, it would be visible in the preceding days getting both nearer and larger. As it hasn't been seen at all, let alone getting bigger or larger, it cannot be true, can it?

What you have picked up on is rumours spread based on a hoax e-mail that is circulating as it has every August since 2003.

The reason it is a hoax is that Mars cannot currently be seen as it is currently on the far side of the sun from us and at least 220,000,000 (220 million) miles away,

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

Let me try to disentangle truth from garbled reportage,

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

The hoax 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 it WAS the closest Mars has been for 60,000 years, Because Mars was at its perihelion (nearest to the sun) within 3 days of when it was at opposition (its nearest to the Earth). That is what was so rare about it,

The e-mail going around suggests that the close approach of Mars and Earth of 27 August 2003 (see the CNN News story below) will occur THIS 27th August, 2006.

It won't! It has already happened, Been and gone.You missed it, Sorry to disappoint anyone but the date you should be writing in your diary is 24th December 2007 not next Sunday.

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.

(At 34.5 million miles away or at 220+ million miles away, however, Mars' effect on our tides was and is minimal,)

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."

(more follows)

Answer 2

So you want to know if Mars will be the same size as the moon, when looking at it? The answer is simply: no. It will be bright enough to point out, but you will not see it as a sphere like you would the moon. It will just be a bright speck to the human eyes, but with a high end telescope, you'd be able to make out the polar ice caps.

What you've heard actually comes from a common doomsday rumor, that was said the last time Mars was decently close- about a year or two ago maybe?

Answer 3

Nope, not true. Some of the information is outdated and some is just wrong. Three years ago, Mars was very close to the earth - but it would never appear as large as the full moon at such modest magnification. Mars is low in the sky and will be hard to spot from the northern hemisphere until December.

Answer 4

No. Mars is too far away from Earth for that to be possible in our night sky. The rules of perspective mean that, although Mars is physically larger than the Moon, it will always look like a bright light to us on Earth due to its greater distance away from us than the Moon.

Answer 5

Mars is already much bigger than the moon.

BTW the event you're referring to occurred three years ago and it was awesome. But Mars looked about the size of a BB... not nearly apparent the size of the Moon.

Answer 6

NO, it just can't happen for one day.
You must get things in perspective,
it may look close to the same size but it is actually much bigger
this is because of their respective orbits and the fact that Mars is much further away

Answer 7

Mars is bigger than the Moon every day !!

Answer 8

Mars is bigger but can been seen when the moon rises on Aug. 27th
http://www.space.com/scienceastronomy/mars_history_030826.html

Answer 9

songs very wrong. however, if you jumped on a space ship heading past it tommarro im sure when you get close enough it will be as big as the moon.

Answer 10

mars is much bigger than the moon, every day.

it wont look as big as the moon in the sky to us, for at least a billion years

Answer 11

Yea, it had a really huge dinner so it will be as big as the moon until it loses some of that weight