No, There Won’t Be Two Moons in the Sky on Aug. 27

[pokerfan]

By Phil Plait

Oh for Ares’ sake. This again? Yup, it’s August, and that means it’s time for the annual “two Moons in the sky” Facebook hoax. Maybe you’ve seen it; it starts to go viral around this time of the year. It’s also sometimes sent around with a note saying, “Mars will be as big as the Moon.”

Let’s get this out of the way immediately: No. It’s baloney. It isn’t true this year, it wasn’t true in 2013, or 2009, or 2008, or 2007, or 2006, or 2005, or even when it first began back in 2003.

It can never be true. Mars can simply never get close enough to Earth to be seen as more than a dot by the eye. Despite that, this hoax gets spread all the time—I’ve already been getting questions asking whether it’s true.

<snip>

Here are the facts. Mars is on an orbit outside of Earth’s from the Sun. It’s at its closest when the Earth passes it on the inside. Both orbits are elliptical, so sometimes they get closer than other times, but really the closest they can be is roughly 55 million kilometers (35 million miles) apart. That’s more than 100 times farther than the Moon. Given that Mars is roughly twice the physical size of the Moon, that should set off alarm bells in your head right away. At best, Mars is still only 1/50th as big as the Moon in the sky! On Aug. 27 the Moon will appear 530 times larger than Mars.

More: http://www.slate.com/blogs/bad_astronomy/2015/08/11/mars_big_as_the_moon_not_in_2015_or_ever.html

[Skinner]

1. How sad that this hoax even needs to be shot down.

Unbelievable that people are this ignorant in the first place. But even so, it would be nice if everyone's first reaction to something like this would be, "Hmm, that seems questionable to me. Before I share it, I'll go check the internet to see if it's true."

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

2. How many Americans believe in angels?

Or trickle down economics FWIW?

[pokerfan]

4. Especially one that has been shot down so repeatedly

I don't get it either.

I'm old enough to appreciate the Internet. In the bad old days one had to go to the encyclopedia or maybe one of the Almanacs to do this kind of basic research. Failing there, it would be off to the library. My point is that it took effort. Today, one has all that and more in the palm of their hands complete -mind you- with a reasonable voice interface. There's just no excuse.

I even asked my phone "Can Mars ever get as big as the Moon?" and the Google result looked something like this.

I suppose these astro hoaxes spread because most people don't pay much attention to the night sky and are so unfamiliar with it that they don't even begin to suspect that it's bull shit so they don't get to the Google point. As an amateur astronomer that makes me a little sad.

[krispos42]

8. Shhhh!

I've been selling amulets that ward against the destructive "two-moon" tidal surge!

You'll blow my sca- business!







I'll cut you in for 15%.

[packman]

3. Yah, but wouldn't that be something?

If that would happen, I would run around all nakedy and such doing a dance unseen for ages---


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and best kept unseen for many more ages-

What would you do if this happened?

[cstanleytech]

6. What would I do? Prepare you a nice relaxing bath

of buttermilk with a nice relaxing massage of flour followed by a soothing bath in hot oil to carry your troubles away.

[packman]

7. That sounded pretty damn good-

till I figured out what the purpose of that "hot" oil was.

[progressoid]

5. My mother in law fell for this crap 10 years ago.

She's also a fundamentalist and a republican so....