Mars in August

[brandbll]

Question: I got an e-mail forward that had this little presentation about Mars in August. It said Mars will appear as big in the sky to the naked eye as a full moon. Is this true?

 

[Mee_n_Mac]

Question: I got an e-mail forward that had this little presentation about Mars in August. It said Mars will appear as big in the sky to the naked eye as a full moon. Is this true?

Nope. Read about it here .....

http://www.space.com/spacewatch/090519-mars-hoax.html

 

[crazyeddie]

Question: I got an e-mail forward that had this little presentation about Mars in August. It said Mars will appear as big in the sky to the naked eye as a full moon. Is this true?

It's amazing how this announcement keeps making the rounds, year after year. :roll:

 

[MeteorWayne]

You can also take this opportunity to educate folks about unreliability of Teh Interwebz.

The close approach to Mars that is wildly distorted in this story occurred Aug 27 2003. The distance was 0.3727 AU.
(35 million miles, 56 million km)

The last close approach was 12/18/07 at 0.583 AU.
(54 million Mi, 82 million km)

The next close approach is 1/27/2010, at 0.664 AU
(62 million miles, 100 million km)

This August, Mars will be rising after midnight, and will be ~ 1.7 AU away. Quite far.
(154 million miles, 250 million km)

MW