Two moons? I heard that this will happen sometime this month but can't remember when?

Question

I guess one of our planets are gonne be so close to the earth that it'll seem like we have two moons. Does anyone know when this is s'posed to happen? I'd like to see that. Thanx.

Answer 1

There is a hoax e-mail circulating on the internet claiming that Mars will look as large as the Moon on August 27th. And a month ago, there was a virtually identical hoax e-mail claiming that Pluto would look as large as the Moon on July 27th. It's the silly season and silly and preposterous Baron Munchausen fairy stories are doing the rounds again.

It is not going to happen.


A BARON MUNCHAUSEN FAIRY TALE

Lots of people have heard the rumour that Mars will be as large as the Moon on August 27th as a result of a hoax e-mail that is going round. Not all of those who have heard the rumour will have seen the e-mail and so may have only heard part of the story and don't know whether to believe it or not.

Don't believe it! It is a hoax, based on a garbled and distorted version of events on August 27th 2003 when there was a close approach of Mars to Earth, but it now circulates with no year-date attached, so that people infer (wrongly) it must mean 2007.

GROUNDS TO BE SUSPICIOUS

A good clue that the hoaxsters don't know what they are talking about when it comes to the Moon is that there is no mention of the Lunar Eclipse due on August 28th 2007.

Given the interest people have shown in solar and lunar eclipses for four millennia, this is a staggering omission for a group of people posing as publicists for exciting news about astronomical events coming up shortly.

If they don't even know there is a lunar eclipse in the offing, how reliable do you think the rest of their information is going to be?

IS THERE ANY TRUTH AT ALL IN WHAT THE E-MAIL SAYS?

These hoax e-mails circulate every summer. Loads of people must get them because Yahoo! Answers gets loads of questions on this subject.

Mars WILL look about the same size and brightness as another celestial body on 27th August, That much is true.

But that body is NOT the Moon, but ALDEBARAN, the bright red giant that is the eye of the bull and the brightest star in Taurus. Bit of a big mistake to make, that, wouldn't you say?

Mars will also be very close to Aldebaran in the sky on 27th August 2007. Mars will be about +0.7 magnitude and Aldebaran is +0.85 magnitude. (A Full Moon is -12.7 magnitude, which means, with a 13.4 difference in magnitude from Mars, the Moon will be 200,000 brighter than Mars!)

SIDE BY SIDE?

You can see where the Moon is yourself, and it is nowhere near Mars and Aldebaran. So Mars will not be appearing "side by side"
with the Moon. Nor will it be as large or as bright as the Moon as the e-mail claims.

ONCE UPON A TIME

Once upon a time a long time ago (about 60,000 BC) there was a close approach of Mars to Earth of about 34.65 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 hoax 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 with no credentials or track record in the world of astronomy 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 if planetary orbits have been observed and carefully calculated and predicted for 4,000 years, it would follow that professional astronomers would already know about this supersized Mars "as big as the Moon" if what the hoaxers say were true!

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) (more like 420 times as far away on 27th August 2007 when it will be 105 million miles away) ever look as big as the Moon? Does a tomato a quarter of a mile away look as big as a cherry held at arm's length? I think not!

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 stay up and 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 hoaxsters 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 hoaxsters 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 hoaxsters 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 2

I don't know what's going on with the answers to this one. Several right answers have been marked wrong.

My answer: This has never happened and never will happen. No planet can approach the Earth close enough to appear as big as our Moon in the sky, ever. This is a hoax email which started in 2003 when Mars was very close to Earth, but still only 1/75 of the diameter of the Moon, which anyone's eyes would see as just a point of light. Currently Mars is quite far from Earth, and won't be as close as it was in 2003 for nearly two decades. It will be somewhat close in December 2007 and January 2008, but still no larger than a point of light.

Answer 3

It ain't gonna happen.
Its a completely wrong, completely impossible story that was first sent out in 2003.

The planet in question is Mars. But Mars never gets any closer to the Earth than 35 million miles - that means Mars will only ever look like a bright point of light in our sky.
For it to look as large as the full moon, Mars would have to come within about 750,000 miles - that's very close.
And if Mars were approaching Earth (so that it would be that close in a week) then it would already be huge in our sky and it would be on all the news stations, in all the papers, all over the Internet, there would be mass panic, churches would be full all the time...

Answer 4

JimGeek is wrong. There are not two full moons in August (almost, but there isn't).

Also, the opposition of mars that will happen on December 24th this year will not be notable in any way. It's not coming really close to Earth. In fact, it's going to be a pretty crappy opposition, with Mars never getting larger than 16 arcseconds (less than a hundredth the apparant size of the moon in the sky). It will appear as a bright reddish star in Gemini around that time.

Right now, Mars rises after 1AM and is in the constellation of Taurus. It is trying to outshine Aldeberan and is hanging out between the hyades and plieades star clusters. It's pretty darn small right now, requiring a good bit of power to actually look like more than a star.

The only astronomical event that is happening at the end of August is a total lunar eclipse during the early hours of August 28th (which is adjacent to the night of August 27th). It will be visible from the US (the entire event only in the western half) and in the far east and Australia. During the total eclipse the moon will show a deep red color so some people may think they've seen Mars, but it's just the moon.

Mars will never come close enough to Earth to appear as more than just a point of light in the sky. In fact, the only body in the solar system that comes close enough to Earth that can appear larger than a point in the sky (besides the sun and moon of course) is Venus, but this only happens during inferior conjunctions with the sun, during which time it is too close to the sun in the sky to be visible.

Answer 5

*sigh... If I only had a dollar for everyone that has received or heard about an e-mail that said that we'll see two moons this month. This actually a mish mash of two things that are going to happen this month.

1. There will be a "Blue Moon" this month. That means that Aug. will have two full moons. Since the lunar cycle is 28 days, you can see you can get two if the timing is right.

2. Mars will make it's closest approach to Earth for a long time. However, it'll still going to be a loooong way away and the perceived brightness increase because of the close approach will hardly be noticeable by most people. It will still be much dimmer that Venus, which can be seen in the western sky right after sunset.

So, I don't know who started that rumor, but it's just wrong...

Answer 6

Seems to me that "Bruce Almighty" is having another love making night. So we should expect more unusual lunar activity since he is Mr. Exclusive! (LOL)

It turns out this whole even thing is a fake! Sorry to dissapoint you, but it would of been neat if it really did happen. My wife did say that there are lots of meteorites coming to into our atmosphere this month. You might want to take a peek with your telescopes and binocular for some flares falling from our sky. I saw some last night and it was pretty amazing.

Answer 7

Well, I got the news about the two moons and was really excited about the event.. But, I got to thinking, why isn't this all over the news?? So I went to Space .com and found out the only event we'll have this month is a total lunar eclipse...So then I came here....Why do people mess with people this way???? Just a hoax!!!!

Answer 8

You (may) actually meet a person, who is still chivalrous in this modern world which is going SO QUICKLY into the Mire, and further down to become stuck! Such a person allows you to think you are not destined to become a fossil against your will...to be discovered thousands of years hence when it will not make a difference, whatever really you were!

Answer 9

The Adler Planetarium says it's not true. Click the link then go to the item called Mars E-mail hoax.

Answer 10

Actually it was 4 years ago, this comes out every Aug..Check things like this @ www.snopes.com type in 2 moons and it will tell you what is true, false or an urban legend..

Answer 11

The rumor is Aug.27. In truth, never. Note to Jim Geek: Mars's closest approach this year will be in December.