‘Mars hoax’ e-mail readers stare at skies for nothing

Beginning in June, an e-mail misquoting information from 2003 circled the web for the seventh year. The e-mail promised that on Aug. 27, Mars would appear as large as the moon.

One version of the June e-mails states, “Planet Mars will be the brightest in the night sky starting August. It will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. This will cultivate on Aug. 27 when Mars comes within 34.65M miles off earth. Be sure to watch the sky on Aug. 27 12:30 am. It will look like the earth has two moons.”

According to Michael Horowitz, defensive computing blogger for Computer World magazine, bad grammar and spelling are often a clue to the fraudulent nature of a message.

In this case, the statement “this will cultivate” could have been a clue that the Mars e-mail’s content was erroneous and likely not written by a scientist.

The popular Internet rumor site Snopes.com states, “Mars did make an extraordinarily close approach to Earth several years ago, culminating on 27 August 2003.

“The red planet came within 35 million miles (or 56 million kilometers) of Earth, its nearest approach to us in almost 60,000 years.

“At that time, Mars appeared approximately six times larger and 85 times brighter in the sky than it ordinarily does.”

According to Space.com, the last time Mars came as close to the earth was in 57,617 B.C., or 59,619 years ago.
The next time it comes near as close will not be until 2287.

More information on the 2003 event and copies of the various e-mails that fueled the hoax are available from Snopes.com at the URL: http://www.snopes.com/science/astronomy/brightmars.asp