Re: My Dad forwarded this to me. Is it a spoof?
- From: KL&M <bunnyrules@xxxxxxxx>
- Date: Mon, 06 Aug 2007 23:22:37 -0500
Yepper! The Nars los Capproach has already hit the news
in Eastern Ioway. The pig farmers are ready for invasion.
CAA ready to observe. Thanks for the advisory! Check FOX
and area astro clubiym for further updates.
Yeeeeeeeeeeeeeehaw! Oink Oink.
Sam Wormley wrote:
Stumpy wrote:
Mars
The Red Planet is about to be spectacular!
Space Weather News for August 4, 2007
http://spaceweather.com
BEWARE THE MARS HOAX: It's August, which means it's time for the annual Mars Hoax. An email is going around claiming
that Mars will approach Earth on August 27th; the encounter will be so close, the email states, that Mars will rival the
full Moon in size and brightness. (Imagine the tides!) Don't believe it. The Mars Hoax email first appeared in 2003. On
August 27th of that year, Mars really did come historically close to Earth. But the email's claim that Mars would rival
the Moon was grossly exaggerated. Every August since 2003, the email has staged a revival.
Here's something that is true: Mars is having a close encounter with the Pleiades star cluster, easily seen in the
eastern sky before sunrise. Especially good mornings to look are August 6th and 7th when the crescent Moon joins the
planet and the cluster to form a pretty celestial triangle. Set your alarm!
MANMADE NOCTILUCENT CLOUDS: This morning in Florida, NASA's Phoenix Mars lander blasted off from Cape Canaveral aboard
a Delta II rocket. The rocket's exhaust created a beautiful display of luminous, night-shining clouds. See the photos
at http://spaceweather.com.
__________________________
Will Mars Look as Big as the Moon on August 27? Nope
http://www.universetoday.com/2007/07/25/will-the-mars-look-as-big-as-the-moon-on-august-27-nope/
Every year around this time, an email circulates across the Internet
speculating that on August 27th, Mars will look as big as the Moon in
the sky. And every year, I go ahead and debunk it. Here's a link to
last year's version. Once again, I'd like to inoculate all my Universe
Today readers, to make sure you understand what's going on, and you're
prepared to explain to your eager friends why this non-event isn't
going to happen.
Say it with me. Mars won't look as big as the Moon on August 27th.
This strange hoax first surfaced on the Internet back in 2003. An email
made the rounds with the following 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. 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
There are a few problems with this. The first problem is that the email
doesn't actually mention the date; it just says August 27th. This means
it can live on for years and years, going around and around the
Internet, forwarded by gullible people to their friends.
The second problem is that it's wrong. Mars isn't going to be making a
close approach on August 27. The close approach this email is
discussing happened back in 2003. It did indeed get closer than it had
in at least 50,000 years, but this was a very small amount. On August
27th, 2003, Mars closed to a distance of only 55,758,006 kilometers
(34,646,418 miles). The Moon, by comparison, orbits the Earth at a
distance of only 385,000 km (240,000 miles). Mars was close, but it was
still 144 times further away than the Moon.
Instead of appearing as a huge red orb in the sky, Mars looked like a
bright red star. Observers around the world set up their telescopes,
and took advantage of this close encounter. But you still needed a
telescope. And if you read the email carefully again, you'll see that
it's trying to explain that.
There's an extra paragraph break. The last sentence of second paragraph
is hanging. It says, "At a modest 75-power magnification ", but there's
no period. The next paragraph starts up with the text, "Mars will look
as large as the full moon to the naked eye." In other words, if you put
one eye into the telescope and looked at Mars, and kept your other eye
looking at the Moon (which isn't actually humanly possible), the two
orbs would look roughly the same size.
Mars and Earth do come together every two years, reaching the closest
point on their orbits - astronomers call this "opposition". And we're
in one of those years. But it's not going to happen on August 27th.
Instead, we'll make our opposition on December 18th, 2007. At this
point, Mars will be 88.42 million km (55 million miles) - further away
than its 2003 opposition.
NASA is taking advantage of the upcoming opposition, and will launch
the Phoenix Mars Lander in August. The spacecraft will make its
shortest possible journey to reach Mars, arriving early next year.
And by next July, it'll be time to write this article all over again.
Filed under: Moon, Mars
.
- References:
- My Dad forwarded this to me. Is it a spoof?
- From: Stumpy
- Re: My Dad forwarded this to me. Is it a spoof?
- From: Sam Wormley
- My Dad forwarded this to me. Is it a spoof?
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