Is it true that Mars would be near the Earth in August 27, 2009?”
Mars as big as the moon on August 27, 2009? Recycled email hoax claims August 27 will bring the closest encounter between Mars and Earth in recorded history. Unfortunately, this ‘once in a lifetime event’ already came and went in 2003. Description: Email rumor / Hoax Circulating since: 2003 (this version: 2009) Status: Outdated / False Full text: Email example contributed by Bob H., April 24, 2009: Check it out, guess no one will get much sleep in August. Mars 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 Ma
An email promising a “Mars spectacular” on August 27 has astronomers seeing red, as scientists try to counter a seemingly unending Mars hoax. The anonymous message from an unknown part of the globe says that the red planet ” … will look as large as the full moon” in the night sky, and that “no one alive today will ever see this again.” The claim has been bombarding people’s inboxes worldwide every summer for five years. Today the Mars hoax has grown into a kind of cyber legend—one that astronomers are still struggling to debunk. “The possibility of seeing Mars as large as the moon strikes the imagination,” said Marc Jobin, staff astronomer at the Montréal Planetarium in Quebec. “The sad reality is that a lot of people have little comprehension of astronomy and are unable to call the hoax.” In fact, there is a thread of truth that inspired the prank several years ago. Planets are not on perfectly circular orbits, and during their elliptical paths around the sun, planets can vary in thei
