Interesting tidbit

lburkey21

I got this email from MIL:

 

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 off 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.

 

GracefulMeadow86

Sorry to break it to you, but thats complete BS. its a hoax. No way that mars could look as big as the moon in our sky without it completely going out of its own orbit around the sun, which isnt going to happen any time soon.

 See this article for a brief explanation: http://www.newkerala.com/news2/fullnews-26437.html

EDIT: sorry i sounded really snotty!!! it just bugs me when people pass on this stuff without doign their own research first

oh and ps im not being snotty to you, but to the people who create this junk and then we believe it and are bummed when we dont get to see something cool like this.

dmorris5

Very cool.  My dad won a really nice telescope in a home lottery draw, so I'm sure he'll be on the balcony all night.  

lisam1217

Thanks for sharing!  I definitely will have to remember to look for this.  And I think the weather is supposed to be pretty clear here in the next few days so we might just luck out!  We had nothing but clouds during the meteor shower earlier this month

GracefulMeadow86

some more info from sky&telescope about this same hoax that came up in Aug 2006.

"

Mars Hoax Returns

August 8, 2006

by Alan M. MacRobert

---

If no one has asked you about it yet, they probably will. A bogus e-mail chain letter, sometimes titled "Mars Spectacular," has been circulating around the Internet, as it did last year. It claims that on August 27th the planet Mars will dazzle the world, appearing brighter than ever in history and "as large as the full Moon to the naked eye."

A bogus e-mail chain letter is misleading people into thinking that Mars will look as big as the full Moon to the naked eye in late August 2006. To learn the truth, see the image below.

Moon: Rick Fienberg; Mars: NASA / J. Bell (Cornell U.) / M. Wolff (SSI)

The problem is that "August 27th" is actually August 27, 2003. Mars did make a historically close pass by Earth at that time, and when magnified 75 times in a telescope, it looked (in the telescope) the size the Moon looks to the unaided eye. But that qualifier has long been lost from some versions of the chain letter.

 

Ironically, in late August 2006 Mars cannot be seen at all; it's hidden behind the glare of the Sun. In any case, to the naked eye Mars always looks like a star, not the full Moon.

As they orbit the Sun, the Earth and Mars make a close approach every 2? years or so. This time is called "opposition," because from our perspective on Earth, Mars then appears opposite the Sun in the sky. On average the two planets come within 48 million miles of each other. But because their orbits are elliptical (oval) rather than perfectly circular, the minimum separation between the two planets varies from one opposition to the next.

Even when Mars is at its closest and brightest, which it won't be again until late 2007, it looks like an orangish star, nowhere near as big and bright as the full Moon.

S&T: Rick Fienberg

In late August 2003 Mars came within 35 million miles of Earth, and in late October and early November 2005 it came within 43 million miles. Mars's next opposition will come in December 2007, when it will be farther still, 55 million miles from Earth. For reference, the Moon orbits the Earth at an average distance of about 240,000 miles, and the average Earth?Sun distance is about 93 million miles.

 

The Mars chain letter seems destined to get revived every August. I don't see this as a bad thing, I see it as a good thing. It's an immunization. If you make a fool of yourself by sending it to all your friends and family, you'll be less likely to send them the next e-mail chain letter you get, which may not be so harmless. "

http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/home/3523496.html

lburkey21

Ha! Ok, well now I feel like a total schmuck for passing on bogus info. Thanks for setting me straight Kim!!

 

and no, I didn't think you were being snotty to me at all!

GracefulMeadow86

lburkey21:

and no, I didn't think you were being snotty to me at all!

ok good!! i know sometimes i can be snotty about sciency-types of things esp astronomy cause i dabble