Will Mars be really close to Earth so as to appear as two moons? Fact Check
Rumours online claim that Mars will be so close to Earth on a particular day that it will not happen again until the year 2287. Many variants of this rumour claim that Mars will be as bright as the Earth’s moon.
Typically, these rumours are particularly prevalent in August of a given year.
OUTDATED AND MOSTLY FALSE
Examples of the rumour can be seen below.
August 2007, a Monday the Whole World is waiting for 2 moons on 27th August 2007 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 culminate on Aug. 27, 2007 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.
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!
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!
As can be determined by the examples above, the claim of an extraordinarily close encounter with Mars in August of a given year isn’t new, and we’ve seen examples going back to around 2007, though this rumour particularly took hold in both 2013, 2015 and 2020 as well.
It’s possible, if not likely, that these rumours originally derived from a real news story back in 2003 (August, no less) when Mars really did pass unusually close to Earth, resulting in the red planet being around 6 times brighter than it normally would do.
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However, rumours like the examples above have not only regurgitated an old story from 2003 and falsely attributed it to the wrong year, they’ve also greatly embellished the story as well. While back in 2003 during the close passing, Mars was indeed around 6 times brighter as normal; but it was still a mere reddish speck in the night sky, and certainly couldn’t be mistaken for the moon.
As such, images claiming to show Mars as the same size as the Earth’s moon have all been digitally altered.
The messages are right about one thing, however. Mars won’t come as close to the Earth as it did in 2003 until the year 2287. So that’s a long wait, but the good news is that Mars does pass pretty close to Earth every few years, the next close passing (at the time of writing) being October 6th 2020.
However, as for the claims that Mars will be soon coming incredibly close to the Earth, or that it will appear like a second moon in the sky, we say no. Such claims are false.