2 moons Tuesday night...anyone gonna watch?

Question

Mars will be so close Tuesday night that it will look like we have 2 moons.Gonna happen around 12:30,and won't happen again for almost 3,000 years....anyone esle gonna be sitting up to watch??

Answer 1

Sorry to break it to ya,but your information is incorrect and incredibly inaccurate.   Mars is currently at a point in it's orbit where it is almost as far away from earth as it can get.  And even at it's closest approach in the last several centuries, back in 2003, it still didn't appear to be anything larger than a pinpoint of light (to the naked eye) although it had a majestic brightness to it.  

It would take a major celestial event to cause an orbital trajectory deviation of Mars to appear that large from earth.  And it would not happen on just one day...  it would gradually get larger every progressive day, until such an occurrence would happen.  The probability of this ever happening is astronomically low, and within your lifetime, about as close to impossible as you can get.

Answer 2

  Cool Dude,I'm gonna watch.

Answer 3

That was August 27, 2003 and Mars was not noticeably closer or brighter on that night than any night about a month either side of the date.

Presently Mars is approaching the Sun in the sky and is only visible for an hour or so after sunset.  The brighter planets Mercury and Venus are rising up to meet it though and the sight is quite pretty if you have a clear western horizon.

Answer 4

This myth started when Mars came close to the Earth and its visual brightness per unit area was almost the same as the moon's.  Of course the moon has a lot more visual area.  So the myth started that Mars would be as BIG as the moon - which has never been the case.

Answer 5

You are the victim of a hoax email which has been circulating since 2003. Mars is not going to be close on August 27 2008; in fact it is heading towards the far side of the Sun and is next to impossible to see.

Answer 6

Yeah, I'll watch.  I'm up anyway at that time, so I'll check it out.  I'll either see something that occurs once in a lifetime or I'll be a foolish idiot.    

Answer 7

If it is over Australia ill have a look. But where will the best place to see it? I would like to know. I recommend people drag as many out to see this as well. We will be the first people to take photos of it.

It will be the closest most of us will come to getting to mars in our lifetime.

Cheers

Jake

Answer 8

Myth.

Mars NEVER gets close enough to be as large in the sky as the Moon.

Even if it did get close enough, it wouldn't be doing so tomorrow, as Mars is currently 120 degrees of the way around the Sun from Earth right now. Even if it were close enough, it wouldn't suddenly be that big one day, it would be getting larger and larger gradually every day, and then gradually smaller and smaller again.

Right now, Mars is setting just after the Sun, so it won't be visible at 12:30, AM or PM.

In order to appear the same size as the Moon, Mars would have to come within 500,000 miles of the Earth! This would be close enough to really cause some tides! (It's twice the distance to the Moon - Mars is roughly twice the size of the Moon)

In reality, the planet's closest approach is about 33.5 million miles - almost one hundred times further away.

(I did the math using sizes / distances for the Moon and Mars looked up on Wikipedia).

Like Peter said, though, it is going to be right next to Venus in the sky at sunset, which is a nice sight anyway, so don't let the fact that it won't be moon-sized stop you from going out and looking at it.

Edit: Interestingly - if Jupiter were in Mars's orbit, then it would actually get larger than the Moon in the sky!

Answer 9

actually, the Starship Enterprise will block off our view of Mars.

take a look at how far away Mars in right now... then delete this silly question, as it's a hoax.

http://astro.u-strasbg.fr/~koppen/orbitv...

Answer 10

Uhh, didnt that happen like 7 years ago..?

Like, mars was really really close and it wouldnt ever be as close as it was for another few thousand years.

I remember that, i took pictures. Haha,

Answer 11

Sure. Like watching with you and hope the weather is fine. To be correct,it is something 288 years later, anywhere if we see it this time,then next time, we shall see it in heaven.

Answer 12

Hate to break it to you, but you'll be lucky if you can even spot Mars. It will be almost directly behind the sun. At most you will see a very faint dot around sunset. Other than that, you aren't going to be seeing anything spectacular. If it was going to be that close, we would see it pretty large tonight. Take a look outside... look for the brightest object in the sky, besides the moon... that isn't Mars, that's Jupiter.

Don't bother setting up... your in for a huge disappointment. This was a chain email started a few years ago... I actually got it. Apparently its still circulating.

Mars was closest to Earth a few years ago, (I think it was 2003, but I'm not sure about that) that it will be in about 300 years... not 3000.

You'd be lucky to see Mars through a telescope on Tuesday.

Answer 13

I certainly will be !!... I've seen with the naked eye in my liftime !!..  MARS many,many times !! also Venus many,many times !! But I guess I'll still consider it a treat to have been able to spot,see or pick those out just with the un`aided eye of a telescope or anything that might magify the objects in the night sky... I've seen URANUS. my sight was wonderful at that time !! or that summer back in the late 1970's or it may have been the early or mid 1980's.. I've seem SATURN,MARS,VENUS,URANUS & yes Neptune&Pluto !?! Or was it pluto/Neptune !?! lol they can or have stleast seemed to switch posiyions in the sky!?! that was late 1970's talk about a "DOT" in the sky ha ha... I still think Pluto's just some space junk/debris that's influenced by the gravity of the other mostly larger planets in our solar system !!. - btw -  that second moon 'll bet was  the planet Venus that you saw !?! depending on what color it was that you could tell!?! It may've been the planet VENUS !?! If what you saw looked like a really cloudy moon !?!.lol Oh ok  Gosh Sure I'll be watching !! & fairly sure one of the weather teams from a staion in the city will say something to remind me to go look !! ;-D  _  r R r