Alright, is this just a bunch of bullsh*t!?

Question

>*Two moons on 27th August 2007*
>
>
>*27th August; the day the Whole World is waiting for ......
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>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 34.65 Million miles of
earth.
>
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>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.
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>
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>Share this with your friends as NO ONE ALIVE TODAY will ever see it
again.


Somebody posted this on myspace. I wasnt sure if it were actually true. The funny part is, a couple of weeks ago during the full moon when the moon was big and red, people were asking questions on here thinking it were Mars. I thought it was pretty ridiculous! And most of the answers made it seem like it were impossible for Mars to ever be that close, and all of us still be living!? So whats the deal!? True or not?

Answer 1

Pure BS.

Somewhere along the line somebody replaced "will be as Bright as the moon" with "will be as Large as the moon".

Even though Mars technically can't get as bright as the moon either it can appear very bright at times.

Answer 2

The original account, in 2003 was worded a little differently and was true, but only for that year. The wording difference was that through a small telescope Mars would appear the size of the moon in our sky. But, this year there will be no such event, even if worded properly.

This year will be much less spectacular. Currently Mars is "in" the constellation Taurus, between the Pleiades and the Hyades clusters. The next opposition of Mars won't be for some months. However, in all but the worst oppositions (an opposition is when Mars, Earth, and the sun are in line) it is approximately the same size as it was in 2003. This next will not be a good opposition, but still will be interesting in a small to medium sized telescope.

Answer 3

That is total BS! That message circulates around the Internet every August. It is absolutely not true. Mars could never come close enough to appear the size of a full Moon. That would mean Mars would have to move tens of millions of miles!

Answer 4

This same email went out during the last opposition in 2005 (see last link) and no doubt we will see it again as we approach June of 2009. *sigh*

Actually, Mars will be 54.5 million miles from Earth on 8/27. No it won't look like 2 moons. 34.65 million miles is a very large distance. Mars has a diameter of ~4200 miles. At a distance of 35 million miles it will subtend a distance of about 10^-4 radians = 25 arcseconds less than 1/200th of a degree. The moon subtends about 1/2 degree as seen from earth.

Another way to look at this is that Mars would have to be within about 500,000 miles of earth to appear about the size of the full moon; a full 100 times closer than it will be on 8/27.

About every 22 and a half months, the Earth 'passes' Mars in their respective orbits around the sun. In sky viewing terms Mars is in "opposition"; that is directly opposite the sun in the sky, so it is highest at local midnight on Earth. This is when both planets are closest.

When opposition coincides with Mars being close to perhelion (closest approach to the sun) and the Earth being at apehelion (furthest from the sun) in their respective orbits is when Earth and Mars are closest amongst these periodic oppositions every 22.5 months.

Given their orbits, they never pass closer than about 33.9 million miles.

During the 2003 opposition (34.6 million miles was a close one, and probably the distance this undying email really means) Mars came as close as it will until 2287, though the 2208 opposition is essentially the same distance. (see mars oppositions link). During the 2003 opposition Mars was 1.6 times brighter than it will be this time around, which is still a far cry from the moon! The next time Mars will be as close as it is this time around is only 2016.

Answer 5

This refers to an event 4 years ago, when Mars cam the closest to Earth in 60,000 years. Every year since it has appeared on the Internet. It was grossly exaggerated then and it does not apply to August 27, 2007.

Mars was certainly big and bright in 2003, but nothing like as big and bright as the moon.

Answer 6

Not.

http://www.snopes.com/science/mars.asp?print=y

Answer 7

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Answer 8

Yes, it is just a bunch of BS. As others have capably explained. I just wanted to add one thing.

Congratulations for having a working BS detector. Most of the other people asking this question have been much more gullible - at least you knew it looked fishy, even if you weren't sure why.

Keep it up, you have the potential to make a good scientist.

Answer 9

Not only is it a pile of crap, it is a huge stinking pile of crap. As I am sure most people here will tell you, Mars is so far away, that nothing short of an end-of-the-world cataclysmic event could bring the planet close enough to earth to rival the moon.

This is an old hoax that just won't seem to die.

Answer 10

Definitely false.

There seems to be a bunch of people out there somewhere that love to come up with all sorts of weird and impossible rumors regarding astronomical events. I've seen tons of stuff like this that was absolutely ludicrous.

I would say that it would be safe to ignore everything you see online of an astronomical nature unless you find it on a reliable website like space.com.