Has any one heard?

Question

Planet Mars will be the brightest in the night sky starting August It will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. This will cultivate on Aug. 27 when Mars comes within 34.65M miles of earth. Be sure to watch the sky on Aug. 27 12:30 am . It will look like the earth has 2 moons. The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287. Has any one heard about this?

I am not falling for anything. i heard this from some one and that is why i asked it did not sound right.

Answer 1

Everyone has heard it. Unfortunately, though you've got the distances right, it just doesn't work out. In order for Mars to appear as large as the moon, it would have to be well within a few hundred thousand miles of Earth.

Incidentally, the event you refer to was four years ago. It gets resurrected every year, but it just doesn't happen. There's another version out that says it won't be Mars, it'll be Venus, and it was July 27th, not August 27th.

Originally, if you looked at Mars on that day THROUGH A TELESCOPE, it would have appeared as large as the moon does without a telescope. This much was true, but as often happens, an intriguing story was blown far out of proportion.

Answer 2

Do not believe this, this is a bunch of bull that some one is spreading around.
To know just how big Mars will look to people here on Earth, go to www.skyviewcafe.com and down load the Observatory program, or just bring up the one on their sight, go to Solar system, look and see where the Earth is, then find Mars, when Mars and the Earth are straight across from each other, that is when Mars is the brightest.
If Mars was to ever look half a big as the Moon, you had better leave the Earth because Mars will be close enough to where the gravity of Mars and the Earth will pull them together.
So when you see items like this, just give them a horse laugh, for it tool a Horses behind to come up with something like that.

Answer 3

Sorry but I have to tell you that you are so full of crap. You don't have a clue that what you are saying is impossible. Where did you get that info?The night of Aug.27 there will be an eclipse of the moon. It has nothing to do with Mars. Maybe you know that during a lunar eclipse the moon appears o be a reddish copper color. Is thAT WHAT YOU ARE TALKING ABOUT? MaRS WILL BE MORE than 50 million miles from earth all month..

Answer 4

This is about the 4th year for this hoax. Notice it has no year for the date. It started with an uninformed member of the press and it just wont die. In 2003 Mars was as bright in light magnitudes as the moon due to its orbit bringing it the closest to the Earth in something like 117 years, but it never was as big or close as the moon. The journalist misunderstood brightness for size and distance. We would die if that were true due to the gravity and magnetic pull from Mars. You can probably find this on snoops.com now too. I believe that in October this year, Mars will be sort of close again but not as close as it was back in August of 2003. You can see it now fairly close to the Pleaties in the ENE sky early in the evening. It does have a bit of a reddish hue to it. Planets do not twinkle. Stars twinkle.

Answer 5

Yes I heard this at the local Astronomy Club.

And, Mars should be indeed brighter than ever before. However, it will not due to its distance from the Earth
look anywhere near as large as the Moon.

Answer 6

It won't look anywhere NEAR a full moon. They are similar in size and the moon is roughly 500,000 miles away. Mars will be 34,650,000 miles away (almost 70 times as far). So I'd love to know where this theory came from.

Answer 7

You heard very wrong like about 100 people who have already said this. Use your reasoning. Take the moon and move it from 250,000 miles to 30 million miles and tell me how it will look as bright. Your rumor is 4 years old. Mars will look like a star.

Answer 8

Cultivate? Must be a Harvest Moon! I think you may mean "Culminate"!

You or your informants have received a hoax e-mail. They circulate every summer. Loads of people must get them because Yahoo! Answers gets loads of questions on this subject.

Once upon a time a long time ago (about 60,000 BC) there was a close approach of Mars to Earth of about 34.5 million miles..

Mars did not come that close to Earth again until 27th August 2003. That was worth remarking upon as a memorable occasion and received publicity. These occasions are called perihelic oppositions.

Mars (magnitude -2.9) was marginally brighter than Jupiter (magnitude -2.8) on that date in 2003. However Venus which is both larger than Mars and nearer than Mars is (as you might expect) always brighter than Mars and varies between magnitude -3.8 and - 4.6.

So the statement in the e-mail that Mars is about to become the brightest planet in the night sky is untrue.

The hoaxers do not know much about astronomy. They just sensationalise and distort the limited facts they have managed to pick up without properly understanding them or their implications.

As Venus has never been seen as large as the Moon and Venus is always brighter than Mars, it follows that Mars will not be seen to be as large as the Moon not on 27th August nor at any other time.

The naive belief that it "could be" that large this time just reveals the hoaxers' lack of understanding of how the Sun's gravity keeps the planets in stable orbits, which means the extent to which they vary in their positions is calculable and predictable.

Humanity has been studying and predicting the planets and their orbits for 4,000 years and writing their findings up in almanacs and suddenly someone comes along and declares "an unexpected dramatic change in a stable orbit is about to occur", wlthout explaining why that should be so. And expects to be believed!?

So the hoaxers do not understand that planetary orbits have been observed and carefully calculated and predicted for 4,000 years.

The hoaxers however seem to be suggesting that planets behave unpredictably and chaotically without any pattern or sense to that behaviour, and further, that they the hoaxers, like the Delphic Oracle of old, have unique divination powers and are passing on their knowledge, to which they alone are privy, to lucky old you.

Whereas all they are in fact passing on is misinformation based on their ignorance.

Mars, even at its nearest in 2003, was 140 times as far away as the Moon, and it is only twice its size (Equatorial radius of Mars = 3,402.5 km. Equatorial radius of the Moon = 1,738.14 km.).

So how could an object that is twice the size of the Moon but at least 140 times as far away (more like 220 times as far away in December 2007 when it will be 55 million miles away) ever look as big as the Moon? Does a tomato 140 yards away look as big as a cherry held at arm's length?

The only way Mars could ever appear as large as the Moon is if it were to get as close as half a million miles away,

If it did do that, it would be a disaster, causing huge tidal waves on Earth and tsunamai such as we have not seen the like of before. It would not be a thing to gawp at, and say "Oh wow! Awesome!" and tell all your friends to look out for it at 12.30 am !

But of course it won't do that (come within half a million miles of Earth) as Mars has a stable orbit.

The hoaxers have sent out the same e-mail every summer as regards 27 August 2004, 27 August 2005, 27 August 2006 and now 27 August 2007. Again revealing their ignorance of how the Solar System works. Mars has a year that equals 1.88 Earth years and as a result only comes close to us once every 26 months: on 27th August 2003, and then not again until 30th October 2005 and then not again until 18th December 2007.

The idea of it having a close approach on the same date every year is nonsense therefore, it is not like a wedding anniversary or a birthday or Mothers' Day, As the hoaxers seem to believe,

If anyone had have craned their necks and looked at the skies at 12.30 am on 27 August 2004 or 27th August 2006, all they would have got for their efforts was a stiff neck. As Mars was on the far side of the Sun on those two occasions and nowhere to be seen, as it was hidden behind the Sun's glare.

That is how much the hoaxers know about astronomy. That is how accurate and worthless their predictions are. Nobody should be taken in by their "knowledge" and nobody should copy and spread their e-mail to others so as "to pass on the exciting news" they have just received.

Snopes.com (see link) have a useful article on the hoax.

Answer 9

no. are you sure this is true because i have not heard anything about mars will look as large as the moon before in my entire life.

Answer 10

sure, at present I heard the sound of sleigh bells being jingled on the Salvation military kettle on the front to artwork. The sound of a lot of human beings paying for up all style of foodstuff for his or her Christmas feasts! and yuletide songs floating out of the keep stereo audio device. And a good number of shoppers saying or replying with Merry Christmases to me and mine! Merry Christmas Dizz expensive and all my splendiferous Contacts on Y!A !!! oxoxox :)