Again, I am hearing stories regarding the “upcoming Mars event on August 27”. Many people have reported receiving e-mails with the outlandish claim that on August 27, Mars will be “as large and as bright as the Full Moon!”  This claim is totally false; it is a lie; it is a hoax.  No such thing will occur, either on August 27, or at any other known time! About four years ago, on August 27, 2003, Mars did make a close approach to Earth.  Once every 2 years and 2 months, Mars is in the opposite direction from that of the Sun, and at those times (or within a week or so of those dates) Mars is closer to Earth than at any other time in that 26-month cycle. At the time of that late-August 2003 opposition, Mars did happen to be closer than at any other time in the past 59,000 years.  Even though it was only VERY SLIGHTLY CLOSER than at other oppositions that had occurred in the 1920's and at other times in recorded history, it still appeared to be a record for Mars-Earth closeness in all of recorded history.  To the naked eye, Mars would appear very slightly brighter than at times of other previous Mars oppositions.  To those who used a telescope, Mars would appear very slightly larger and very slightly clearer and more resolved in the eyepiece. Again in October 2005 Mars was at opposition and very slightly brighter than usual to the naked-eye and very slightly larger than usual in the telescope, but slightly “less bright” and slightly “less large” than it had been in August 2003.

  To alert other astronomers to these facts, in July of 2003, an article was written by an astronomer, stating correctly that IN THEIR TELESCOPES, AT VERY CONSIDERABLE MAGNIFICATION, “Mars would appear as big, and as bright, as the Full Moon appears to the naked-eye.”  Someone, either through carelessness or an intentional desire to deceive, repeated the statement, leaving out the part of the sentence that mentioned the Mars observation being made with a telescope!!!  It was circulated in an e-mail, and the “chain-letter process” began.  This chain letter appeared again in July and August of 2004, 2005, 2006, and as regular as clockwork, it appeared again this summer.  My prediction (an easy one to make!) is that this nonsense will reappear on the internet again in the summer of 2008, and 2009, and for a long time to come.

One reason that some people may be inclined to accept such hoaxes is that so few people stop to think of some basic facts regarding the solar system, facts that they may have learned in school a long time ago.  They have learned that the orbits of Mercury and Venus are smaller than that of Earth, and the orbits of Mars, Jupiter, Saturn are bigger than the orbit of Earth.  Only Earth has a year of 365¼ days with seasonal changes occurring on that basis.  On Mars the year is 687 Earth-days long with seasonal changes occurring on that basis.  On Jupiter the year is almost 13 Earth-years long, and on Saturn the year is 29½ Earth-years.  It is utter nonsense to think that any noticeable change on ANY other planet will occur every year on an Earth-yearly basis, or according to our Earth-year calendar.  It might make some sense, if a hoaxer were to propose that some change on Mars occurred once every 687 days, or on Jupiter once every 13 years, or on Saturn once every 29½ years.  (For example, the dust storms that astronomers occasionally observe on parts of Mars occur, not because it is summer or winter on Earth obviously, but probably because the Martian surface temperature increases when it is Martian summer on that part of that planet!)    As was pointed out in the recent August Skies column in this paper, Mars, this month, may be seen in the latter part of the night and before dawn in the constellation Taurus, but it is not nearly as bright as the planet Jupiter which is seen in the early part of the night this month.  To the unaided eye, Mars is always a pinpoint and Mars is never as bright as the planets Venus or Jupiter.  The Full Moon is always thousands of times brighter than any of the planets.

  The  “Mars Spectacle” is a bogus chain letter, a lie, and a hoax.  Be prepared to challenge all those who repeat such nonsense.