Mars and our Moon will look the same size, and both be visible together on the 27/08/2013 ???

Hello ATS, I found this strange info floating about online, but i don't know what to make of it to be honest, is it even possible?, and if it is, then it should be quite a sight if it looks anything like the picture below which i imagine has been made that way to show what it might look like to us on the ground?

Opinions welcome....




"WARNING! August 27 at 00:30 Lift up your eyes and look up at the night sky. On this night, the planet Mars will pass just 34.65 million miles from the earth.

To the naked eye it looks like two of the moon above the ground!

The next time Mars will be so close to the Earth as much as in 2287.

Share the news with your friends, because no one living on this earth has ever seen!"

This is a myth and has been debunked on everyone's favorite urban legend website.

It has spread around on people's timelines the past few weeks but is not true.

Cheers.

reply to post by xMJRx


Can't imagine this is correct but a link to the original source would be great!!!

Peace

I've provided the link below....

Snopes

It's a shame though, that would be a spectacular sight!

Firstly, some sort of link to a source would've been very helpful. Secondly, it's false.

Mars will never be close enough to Earth to be that large in the sky. Furthermore, if this were true, it would be all over every news station and website around the world, including Space.com. Space.com only lists information for Mars in August as:

Mars is now a bright object in the morning sky. For the first three weeks of August, Mars is in Gemini, then on August 25 it moves into Cancer.

Space.com

That says Mars is visible in the morning sky, your fake source says night sky, which is false.

Yeah, thought as much, what a shame, a sight like that would be absolutely amazing and very exciting, i just don't understand why people make things like this up, what does it achieve for them?

Also sorry i didnt post the fake source, i saw it on FaceBook, not sure of the true origin though... www.facebook.com...

Originally posted by xMJRx
i just don't understand why people make things like this up, what does it achieve for them?

Hoaxers like to get gullible people to spread their hoaxes around the internet like you just did. And then more gullible people believe it and spread it around.

The easiest way to avoid this is do a little research on a subject before posting it. A simple visit to Space.com or other similar website would've given you the info you needed, and prevented you from spreading the hoax.

reply to post by xMJRx

Um, no, actually it's not possible. Mars is only visible as a point source of light in the sky, no matter what its distance. A telescope is needed to discern any sort of disk. Sorry to break the bad news, but as someone with a lifelong interest in astronomy, I had to take note of this.

Actually, I've heard this one numerous times, it's kind of an astronomy 'urban legend'. You wouldn't believe how many of those there are, even leaving out those people who constantly believe something is going to smack into the earth.

The closest Mars came to earth was in 2003

August 25, 2003: At 09:51 universal time (UT) on August 27th, Earth makes its closest approach to Mars in nearly 60,000 years. The two worlds, center-to-center, will be just 56 million kilometers apart--a short distance on the scale of the solar system. The last people to come so close to Mars were Neanderthals.

Mars

Click the link and it gives a picture of the size that it was. It was beautiful yes but not even close to the size of our moon!! It never will be.

I just wonder why there is a "WARNING" lol

I mean would you just look up and freak out anyway? I guess warning people so they don't loose their minds that some how the laws of Physics no longer applied and Mars or Earth has been kicked out of it's normal orbit....




No Mars will be close as Mars gets during this time of year but it will NEVER be the apparent size of the moon. Here this will help you understand the distance to mars...

I do love this part.

Share with your friends, because no one living on this earth has ever seen!"

It is true, And no one ever will...


It is stuff like this and the OP posting it that convinces me on how easy it is for a myth to perpetuate and persevere...

Why would someone post a question and not even bother to educate themselves on the subject?

Its very sad how willfully ignorant some people are burdening others with their stupidity and laziness.

Hey OK, fair enough, i should have searched for the story before posting it here, jeez, sorry, my apologies for my laziness, just thought i would get more credible answers here first, rather than Google.

And for the record, there's no need to be rude to me either, i just wanted opinions on this story that's all, "fake" or "true" not personal attacks implying im gullible or lazy etc, etc, i wasn't posting the story saying i believe it, and i didn't believe it, but im no astronomer, so to be sure it was not true, i posted the story here to see what the truth was, now i know, so thank You.

It's definitely not possible, and the photo was photoshopped for sure.. looks like the same moon only upside down =)

do you know gravity?
if it so clos3 like moon so what whould happen? do you ever think about it? it will imbalance gravitional field..and make a super chaos event on earth..you not only cant see it two, but also cant open your eyes becouse you already dead by that chaotic event

reply to post by xMJRx


quite impossible as if mars were to appear the size of the moon from earth, it would have left orbit and it's gravitational effects would wreak havoc on the solar system.

The Mars hoax was a hoax circulated by e-mail that began in 2003, that claimed that Mars would look as large as the full Moon to the naked eye on August 27, 2003. The hoax, which has since resurfaced every year from 2005 through 2013, began from a misinterpretation and exaggeration of a sentence in an e-mail message that reported the close encounter between Mars and the Earth in August 2003. At that time, the distance between the two planets was about 55,758,000 kilometers, which was the closest distance between them since September 24, 57,617 BC, when the distance has been calculated to have been about 55,718,000 kilometers.

Source

It is quite obviously scientifically incorrect that Mars, normally never more than a dot in the night sky, could suddenly become visibly large due to normal variations in orbit. If Mars did appear as large as the moon it would be so close that it would cause catastrophic gravitational effects — Mars has about twice the diameter of the Moon, and hence would be about twice as far away for the same apparent size. It has nine times the mass of the Moon, and would have over twice the gravitational effect (nine times the larger mass divided by relative distance squared).

I get that people fall for hoaxes, but honestly, you'd have to be pretty ignorant to fall for this one. Pretty darn ignorant.

reply to post by xMJRx

Yeah, thought as much, what a shame, a sight like that would be absolutely amazing and very exciting, i just don't understand why people make things like this up, what does it achieve for them?

good question, I'd start asking the people here who are "in contact" with aliens from Lyra, Pleadius, etc etc.

Short answer, some people get off on making people believe something they made up, i don't know why, but it's a fact. In fact, that fact represents probably 25% of posts on ATS as of late.

Haha, this myth always comes up during this time of year. Mars never can be that close.

Originally posted by xMJRx
Hello ATS, I found this strange info floating about online, but i don't know what to make of it to be honest, is it even possible?, and if it is, then it should be quite a sight if it looks anything like the picture below which i imagine has been made that way to show what it might look like to us on the ground?

Opinions welcome....

"WARNING! August 27 at 00:30 Lift up your eyes and look up at the night sky. On this night, the planet Mars will pass just 34.65 million miles from the earth.

To the naked eye it looks like two of the moon above the ground!

The next time Mars will be so close to the Earth as much as in 2287.

Share the news with your friends, because no one living on this earth has ever seen!"

No.

It's only a matter of time until this rumor gets even more exaggerated and it'll state that Mars will fill up half of the sky.

What is Mars furthest distance from the Earth ? I heard it has one of the most elongated eliptical orbits of any planet in the solar system ?