A series of persistent social media rumours claim that Mars will appear as big as the moon in the night sky, giving the illusion of two moons in the sky.
Many variants of the rumour claim this is because Mars will be unusually close to Earth and the phenomenon will not occur again for many hundreds or thousands of years.
Anyone with any rudimentary understanding of space and astronomy will of course tell you that these rumours are simply nonsense. Not only that, but these persistent hoaxes have already been debunked a number of different times by various experts (see further down.)
The rumours have been spreading across email and social media for years. One vague version from 2015 simply stated that “Mars will be visible” on August 27th while coming attached to various photoshopped images of Mars next to the moon, along with the claim that the event will not reoccur until the year 2287.
On August 27, 2015 at 12:30am Mars will be visible.The next time this will happen will be in 2287. I can’t wait!
Another 2015 variant expanded on this by claiming it will appear as if there are two moons in the sky –
12:30 Aug 27th you will see two moons in the sky, but only one will be the moon. The other will be Mars. It won’t happen again until 2287. No one alive today has ever witnessed this happening.
More detailed perhaps, but equally spurious. This “August 27th” variant of the hoax is actually over a decade old, as the below message that circulated through email way back in 2007 will testify –
FW: TWO MOONS
MARK YOUR CALENDARS FOR THIS
** Two moon on 27 August ***
27th Aug the Whole World is waiting for………….
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 happen On Aug. 27 when Mars comes within 34.65M miles of earth. Be sure to watch The sky on Aug. 27 12:30 am. It will look like the earth has 2 moons. The Next time Mars may come this close is in 2287.
Share this with your friends as NO ONE ALIVE TODAY Will ever see it again.
Another differently worded version of this hoax is the “cosmic event” variation, which claims Mars appears as big as the moon in the night sky every “35,000 years”. This variation at least had the decency to change the date, opting instead to claim the celestial phenomenon was due to happen on July 27th.
A cosmic event that only happens every 35,000 years: July 27, 2018, the planet Mars will be as big as the Moon
On July 27, around midnight, do not forget to raise your head and look into the sky: Mars will be the most brilliant star in the sky. This is because it will have an apparent diameter as big as the Full Moon! It will be possible to observe, with the naked eye, a cosmic phenomenon which will allow the inhabitants of the Earth to behold … two moons!
We may have a new date, but the accuracy of the message is just as lacking, and the data just as arbitrary.
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While the planet Mars appearing in the night sky as big as the moon would be quite the event, it still wouldn’t be as impressive as the persistence and utter resolve of this years-old hoax that has managed to spread virally across both social media and email, unverified, despite being entirely made-up from start to finish and well-documented as enitrely false.
EarthSky.org notes on their website…
Mars can never appear as large as a full moon as seen from Earth. As seen from Earth, in months when Mars does appear side by side with a full moon, Mars’ diameter appears, on average, about 1/140th the diameter of the full moon.
In other words, you’d have to line up 140 planet Mars – side by side – to equal the moon’s diameter.
Sorry, skywatchers: Despite what you may have heard, Mars won’t look as big as the moon overhead tonight
NASA had their say too, naturally…
However, don’t be fooled by the Mars Hoax! Since 2003, this urban legend gets circulated through email and social media every time Mars makes a close approach.
Don’t be fooled by the Mars Hoax. The message is that Mars will look as big as the Moon in our night sky. If that were true, we’d be in big trouble given the gravitational pulls on Earth, Mars, and our Moon!
In fact, this online hoax is so persistent as to earn itself the status of bona-fide online urban legend. A legend that even has its own Wikipedia page.
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If you’re curious as to how the legend started, we can turn our heads and minds back to 2003, when Mars really did make a very rare appearance close to our own Earth and appeared much brighter in the night sky than usual. And yes, that did happen on August 27th. But if you were expecting a second moon in the sky, even back then you’d be disappointed since to the naked eye, the red planet was only nominally brighter in the sky.
However back then, amid a flurry of excited emails about Mars’s close appearance, many were miscommunicated or misunderstood, and the legend that the planet will appear as big as the moon was born, and it’s never really gone away since thanks to continued miscommunication and most likely some Internet pranksters as well.
Ultimately, it doesn’t matter what version of this hoax you see, if it’s telling you that Mars will appear as big as the moon in the night sky, it’s a hoax!