1 of 1

Write now Article Tools

As an amateur astronomer i get asked many questions, most of which i am more than happy to answer, however some questions spawned from silly e-mails that heavily distort facts just get me annoyed.

Odds are many readers have seen this e-mail at least once before:

"*Two moons on 27 August*

27th Aug the Whole World is waiting for...*

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.

Share this with your friends as NO ONE ALIVE TODAY will ever see it again."

This e-mail is very false. in august a few years ago mars came quite close to earth. However even at its closest approach Mars was never anywhere near the size of the full moon.

The original article said that Mars would be as large as the full moon when seen through a 75X telescope.

This year Mars is nowhere close to Earth at all. Last year it was somewhat close to earth, but not as close as it was in 2003. Sadly many people do not look into the sky enough to realize that Mars has not been getting brighter day by day. if it was going to be the size of a full moon then by now it would be brighter than anything in the sky except for the full moon and the sun.

Planets do not just suddenly become magnificently bright (unless of course they are being destroyed by the death star...). If mars was ever going to become this bright we would notice it long before then, and we would likely start to panic because it might mean that Mars is about to collide with the earth.

Odds are this unfortunate e-mail will be making its way around to our inboxes again next year, so please do not fall for it this year or any other year, check out official astronomy websites for information on things like this. If Mars is going to be getting bright then it will be in the magazines and on the websites. Do not trust random e-mails like these Mars ones.

Learn more about this author, Ceaser.
Click here to send this author comments or questions.

Add your voice

Know something about Debunking the erroneous Mars email about its closeness to Earth?
We want to hear your view. Write now!