When will Mars be closest to Earth?

Question

I have got information that Mars will be closest to Earth on the 27th August, 2008. I want to know At what time GMT will this unique sight be seen?

I really do not want to miss it because the next time it will appear will be in 2287. So please tell me when this event will take place.

Answer 1

Sorry.  This is a hoax.  In 2003, Mars did get it's closest to Earth in 60,000 years.  The distance to Mars varies and gets "closest" to earth about every 26 months.  For more on the hoax see http://www.snopes.com/science/mars.asp.

Answer 2

good question because no one can tell the exact time where the planet mars will be moved towards the planet earth!

Answer 3

You have very bad information.  

That awful, undated, article is still circulating in e-mails from back in 2003 when a poorly informed news reporter misunderstood that Mars was going to be as bright as the Moon so he wrote that it was going to be as big and bright as the moon.  It was never going to be as big as the moon, only as bright as measured in light magnitudes.  

Please do not continue to spread these lies in your e-mails.  

I dont know where you get your 2287 information or date.  Nothing could be farther from the truth. You dont have to wait nearly 300 more years to see Mars.  You can see Mars during the right seasons every year, it is just in different distances so it is not as bright as it was back in 2003.

http://www.stellarium.org/

This is a great freeware program that you can download.  Use it to find Mars.  You can also tell it where you are and it will tell you what you see in the sky.

Answer 4

The next time Mars will be closest to the Earth will be on January 9, 2010. On August 27 2008, it will be far away on the other side of the Sun.

There is an urban myth which began with an email which was sort of true in 2003, that Mars would be very close and bright. It also had a line in it which suggested that Mars, IN A TELESCOPE, would look as large as the Moon with the naked eye. Somewhere along the way, the "with a telescope" bit disappeared. August 2003 came and went, and many people had wonderful views of Mars through telescopes provided by amateur astronomers around the world.

Then the email resurfaced in 2004, when Mars was on the far side of the Sun. Then again in 2005, when Mars was in opposition in October, not August, and quite a bit smaller. Then again in 2006, when Mars was again on the far side of the Sun. Then again in 2007, when opposition was in December, and Mars smaller still. Now, you're the first to be fooled by this fake email in 2008! Mars is again on the far side of the Sun.

When will people learn that astronomical events are predicted for a particular date, which has absolutely nothing to do with Earth years, and you can't just keep recycling the same prediction and changing the year? Everything on Mars happens in a 26 month cycle: August 2003, October 2005, December 2007, etc

Answer 5

even at it's closest, with the naked eye mars would still look like just another star in the sky...

you won't really be missing much if you do miss it.  

Answer 6

The next Mars opposition will occur on January 29, 2010.  That's when the Sun, the Earth and Mars are lined up.

There's an email going around, modified from 2003 when the August 27th Mars Opposition was the closest for a really long time.  We get one every couple years, but the date on our calendar slides a little later.  The closest ones are in August and September.  That's when the Earth is farthest from the Sun and Mars is closest to the Sun in their orbits - more or less.