Tomorrow is Mars really going to be as visible as the moon?

Question

I got an email that says tomorrow Mars will be visible like the moon.

I want to know if it's true

anybody else know about it??

thanks!

p.s. heres the email

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.

Answer 1

That email is from 5 years ago. That happened in 2003, and the email's recirculating for some reason. It didn't appear as big as the moon, not even close (the original 2003 message said "At a modest 75 power magnification, Mars will look as large as the moon to the naked eye."), but still would've been neat to see. Sorry, you missed your chance. Unless you plan on making it another 279 years.

Answer 2

Yes but on the perfect weather conditions.

Answer 3

No. That email was referring to August 2003, and is totally wrong fror August 2008. Mars currently is on the far side of the Sun, and a very difficult object to observe.

Answer 4

This is untrue in 2 ways:

1) It's old news. It was 2003 when Mars was going to be at closest approach, not this year. Right now, if the solar system is represented as a clock face, with the sun at the center, Earth is at 12, and Mars is at 4. It's only when both are at 2 or both are at 7, etc, when they can be "closest" to each other.

So first of all, it's old. So why is it circulating the net even today? It goes 'round every year in August because of the even larger falsehood in it. This second falsehood is so amazing, that I'm sure someone thinks it's just hillarious to pull out their copy of the ol' chain mail, change 2003 to this year, and send it out to see who believes it.

2) Mars never appears as large as the Moon does in the sky. Never, even when it's the absolute closest it could ever be in the history and future of the solar system.

Why? Well, if you go look up the information, you'll discover that Mars is roughly twice the size of the Moon. This means that Mars would have to be roughly twice the lunar distance away in order to be the same size in the sky (this is simple geometry, using the properties of similar triangles, btw). So how far away is that? The Moon is roughly 250k miles away on average. This means that Mars would need to be roughly 500 thousand miles away to look as big as the Moon. Even if the chain letter's figure of 34.65M miles is correct, then Mars won't look anywhere near as large as the Moon.

34.65M (let's say 35m for the sake of round numbers) is 140 times further away than the Moon.... that means that Mars will be 140 times smaller than the Moon is in the sky, even at this historically near approach.

For the record, right now Mars is very near Venus, Mercury, and Saturn in the sky - just over the western horizon right at sunset. It would be the third-brightest of these four dots (Mercury being the faintest). If you want to go see these planets, look west at dusk - they'll be very low in the sky even then. Happy planet watching!

Answer 5

Yeah

Answer 6

Nope Physically impossible. Even on its nearest approach, there is no way Mars can appear as large as the moon.

Answer 7

only if you are on phobos. somebody's messing with you.

Answer 8

Mars won't look as big as the moon 'cos it's further away.

It might be more visible, but it'll still look like a red dot.

Answer 9

it's not true. Just google it for a few minutes.

Answer 10

its a lie i saw the same thing last year

Answer 11

no, i got the same email and googled it, it's a stupid chain letter.

Answer 12

Possibly, but whoever sent you the email can't spell: cultivate is *NOT* a word associated with astronomy.  I think he or she meant "culminate."

Answer 13

yeah but where???????????????

Answer 14

No.

Read this, it explains it well:

http://www.snopes.com/science/mars.asp

Answer 15

No mars will not be as big as the moon. It may be a little more visible than normal but it will be no where near the visability of the moon.

Answer 16

Sorry, no. Last year I got the same e-mail and I stayed up all night to see it and a lunar eclipse, but no luck. At least for Mars.

Besides, Mars is really low in the sunset right now.

Answer 17

It should depend on where you are in the world. I haven't heard anything about this though.

Answer 18

That email goes around almost every year (it was a complete misquote from a badly0written article in 2003).

The answer is no.  Its complete trash.

Mars never gets closer than 34.65 million miles (that's the 34.65M).

At that distance, Mars is never more than a bright point of light in the sky.

The "full moon" business is from the part of the article no one reads, that states "in a TELESCOPE, Mars will appear as large as the full moon does to the naked eye".

Answer 19

No.  It said that with 75 power magnification it would look as large as the Moon.