17 replies to this topic

[Infernity]

Is it just me who looked yesterday's night in the sky to see the mighty Mars?

They said it will be the closest ever in history to the earth, and indeed it was as shiny as like 5 stars accumulated....

Was very nice to see.


Any spectators?


-Infernity

[AdamDavis]

Cool! No I have not seen it, but I'll keep my eyes open every night from now on. Thanks for the heads up! Of course it will be in a totally different position to where you saw it.

[Mind]

I believe the Mars information is mistaken. The close approach of Mars occurred three years ago. You won't see anything this year. For some reason, the "Mars" email keeps making the rounds every August. Someone finds a write-up about the close approach of Mars that occurred a few years ago and mistakenly thinks it is this year. They pass an email on to their friends and whammo! All around the world people think they will see a unusually large Mars in the sky.

It isn't a hoax, just a mistake, amplified by the internet.

[biknut]

Yes that's right, I remember looking at Mars then. I forgot how close it was. I was thinking about 45 million miles.

At 5:51 a.m. EDT on Aug. 27, 2003, Mars was within 34,646,418 miles (55,758,006 kilometers) of Earth. This was the closest that Mars has come to our planet in nearly 60,000 years.

[Infernity]

...Mind sweet, so why the hell was it in the Israeli News PAPERS??

I have seen it too then, three years ago, but read it is even closer now (yesterday)....


If it's true or not it was close enough to be very pretty and shiny in the sky.

-Infernity

[jaydfox]

No, the Mars thingy is loosely in the category of urban legends. I've seen this email making the rounds every year since the year it really happened (2003?)

This latest round was really funny, because the email formatting made it sound downright freaky:

Fw: Mark you calendar...We will never see this again....


...nor will the people of the next 50-to-1,000 Life Times!
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
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.

Mars will be easy to spot. At the
beginning of August it will rise in the east at 10 p.m.
and reach its azimuth at about 3 a.m.

By the end of August when the two planets are
closest, Mars will rise at nightfall and reach its
highest point in the sky at 12:30 a.m. That's pretty
convenient to see something that no human being has
seen in recorded history. So, mark your calendar at
the beginning of August to see Mars grow
progressively brighter and brighter throughout the
month.

Share this with your children and grandchildren.

NO ONE ALIVE TODAY WILL EVER SEE THIS AGAIN

Notice this line: "Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye."

The full line is actually: "At a modest 75-power magnification, Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye."

But they broke it up in such a way that if you're not paying attention, you see just the sentence stating that Mars will look as large as the full moon! My wife freaked out when she read that, then thought, "Wait, that can't happen, can it?" But if you read the whole thing, you'll see that it will appear that large "[at] a modest 75-power magnification".

Check this out:
http://www.pennlive....4610.xml&coll=1

A naked-eye view of Mars as big as the moon this weekend? A lot of people, including us, received e-mail this week advising that Mars would pass closer to Earth than it has in the past 5,000, or maybe 60,000 years, Sunday night. It would be an unprecedented historic event.

If the messages were true, it would be historic. Alas, they are not. Turns out the close encounter between Earth and Mars took place Aug. 27, 2003. This Sunday you won't be able to see Mars, not even with a telescope, since it is on the other side of the sun.

But if you missed it three years ago, Mars gets pretty close every couple of years and quite close every 17 or 18.

[Infernity]

Hm oka, anyways it was like a month ago in the papers..
And now I know the brightest star is Mars ^^


-Inferniy

[Richard Leis]

These spam email about Mars are becoming an annual event. Family members still seem to ask me about it every year despite my assurances that the real event happened in 2003. Still, Mars does get brighter when it is closest to the Earth, so it should always be exciting

[boily]

I got a spam email too about Mars, was outside looking last night, lol!

[Infernity]

Why do you guys open spam?

-Infernity

[jaydfox]

Why do you guys open spam?

I don't open them:

My wife freaked out when she read that

I find about them because my wife forwards them to me every year. I rely on her as my first layer of spam defense, but things like this slip by her.

[Infernity]

Tell her not to do it then....

-Infernity

[Mind]

Like I said earlier...it isn't really spam or a hoax...just a mistake. Somebody read a summary of the 2003 event and thought it was coming this year. They forwarded an email to all of their friends. Things get amplified by the internet. I do find it strange that it would happen 3 years in a row...the "mistake". Every year the email must find a new group of people.

[Lazarus Long]

It might even be true in a sense because for the next few years, as each year passes, we may not have hit the point where the distances grow smaller again for many decades, centuries or longer. You have to do an analysis for each year to see when we get this close again but it is still probably a significant period of time before we approach the closest point again.

Once a year we approach a closest point in space, since the original event cannot be repeated for many millennium each subsequent year for a least the first few years will logically be close to that record approach and thus perhaps also the closest we will be for a considerable period of time though it probably diminishes by orders of magnitude each year as the elliptical orbits rotate apart.

[Richard Leis]

Sorry, Infernity. I can see that we took the wrong tack with our responses and may be confusing two separate events – (1) your report of a bright Mars, and (2) the continued recirculation of an email about the closest approach ever of Mars in 2003.

Mars is simply a beautiful sight to behold

[Infernity]

lol there is an e-mail running since 19-and-find-me, of a girl who might die cuz she has no money for the medicines and each time you pass the e-mail another few cents go o them or so ^^ she's dead or old now probably ^_____^


Anyways, back to topic, in Europe you can't see any Mars nor any Moon, all you see is clouds, they dunno what sky is heehee.

-Infernity

[JohnDoe1234]

Yeah I'm a member of an astronomy forum www.universetoday.com, but it's funny watching stuff like this go round 'n round over there, [lol]

I rely on her as my first layer of spam defense, but things like this slip by her.

Funny...

[mikelorrey]

Like I said earlier...it isn't really spam or a hoax...just a mistake. Somebody read a summary of the 2003 event and thought it was coming this year. They forwarded an email to all of their friends. Things get amplified by the internet. I do find it strange that it would happen 3 years in a row...the "mistake". Every year the email must find a new group of people.

I happen to think that someone who is for manned travel to Mars keeps creating the spam as a means of keeping the Mars meme alive every year when Mars is brightest in the sky... think of it as grassroots memehacking/lobbying