The Great Mars Hoax

[Madame Butterfly 0]

The Great Mars Hoax:

Will Mars really loom bigger than the full moon in the night sky this month? There's a wave of e-mail messages that say so, but don't believe it.

 

The truth is less spectacular, but still worthy of note.

 

It's true that the Red Planet is getting closer to Earth, but when Mars makes its close approach in late October and early November, it won't be as close or as bright as it was during 2003's history-making sky show.

 

 

The e-mail that's currently going around appears to be a garbled replay of the advance notices for the 2003 encounter, which reached its climax in August of that year. Here's an excerpt the bogus text:

 

"The Red Planet is about to be spectacular!

 

"This month and next, Earth is catching up with Mars in an encounter that will culminate in the closest approach between the two planets in recorded history. The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287. Due to the way Jupiter's gravity tugs on Mars and perturbs its orbit, astronomers can only be certain that Mars has not come this close to Earth in the last 5,000 years, but it may be as long as 60,000 years before it happens again.

 

"The encounter will culminate on August 27th when Mars comes to within 34,649,589 miles of Earth and will be (next to the moon) the brightest object in the night sky. It will attain a magnitude of -2.9 and will appear 25.11 arc seconds wide. At a modest 75-power magnification Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. ..."

 

Some of the folks who received the message read even more significance into the text, thinking that Mars might look as big as the full moon even without the aid of a telescope. But taken at face value, the message pretty much describes what happened in 2003.

 

This year, Mars is due to come closest to Earth on Oct. 29, and on Nov. 7 it will reach opposition (which means the sun, Earth and Mars will be in a straight line). Mars will be 43 million miles from Earth at its closest, with a width of about 20 arc seconds.

 

By that measure, the viewing conditions will be slightly worse than they were in 2003 — but they're still the best we'll see until 2018.

 

There's another consolation this year: Mars will be higher in the sky than it was in 2003, meaning that the atmosphere will create less wobble in the image you see through your telescope. And you'll need a telescope to see Mars as anything other than a bright reddish "star" in the sky. So you might want to start checking into what your local astronomical society has on tap for this fall.

 

For more on the mixed-up Mars e-mail, consult Sky & Telescope or Earth & Sky. The Shallow Sky has a pretty good guide to this year's Mars encounter, and refers to the bogus e-mail as well.

 

You don't have to wait until fall to see the Red Planet: Mars is shining right now in early morning skies. To find out the where and the when, consult Space.com or Heavens Above. And stay tuned for more information about this month's featured sky show, the Perseid meteor shower, which hits its peak next week