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It's that time of year again, when we get calls and e-mails from people
who have heard that something special is happening with Mars on August 27.
Here's a reply to a message I got earlier this week (addressee's name
changed).
Steve Fentress, Director
Strasenburgh Planetarium
Rochester Museum & Science Center
Rochester, NY USA
-----------------------------------------
Dear Martha:
Thanks very much for your message. I can highly recommend visiting the
astronomy club's star parties, but there is no Mars event in the sky on
August 27. I suspect you might have heard a rumor that spreads by e-mail
every year. Here's what happened:
- On August 27, 2003 -- that's six years ago -- Earth came unusually close
to Mars. By a fraction of a percent, we were closer than any time in the
last 60,000 years or so. Mars looked very bright in the sky for several
weeks around that date. Around the world, planetariums were swamped with
visitors who mistakenly believed you had to look on the night of August
27, 2003 or you'd miss whatever there was to see.
- Sometime earlier in the summer of 2003, someone wrote an e-mail that
started out with words like "On August 27, Mars will be spectacular!" and
ended with the message "Tell your children and grandchildren. NO ONE ALIVE
WILL EVER SEE THIS AGAIN!" The e-mail was quickly passed from person to
person around the world. The e-mail had confusing wording. It was trying
to say that if you magnify Mars through a telescope you can make it look
as big in the telescope as the full moon does without a telescope. True.
However, many people interpreted it to mean that you could go outside and
see Mars as big as the moon, or two moons in the sky, or something like
that. False. Mars never looks larger than a star unless you magnify it
with a telescope.
- The e-mail said August 27, but did not mention a year.
- The e-mail goes around again every year as August 27 approaches, and
planetariums all over the world - including ours - get questions about it.
Actually, Earth and Mars come near each other about every 26 months. The
next time this will happen will be in late January 2010. Approaches to
Mars that are exceptionally close occur about every 15 years. The next
exceptionally close approach will be in July 2018, when Mars will be
almost as close as it was in August 2003.
You can see Mars in the sky this month (August 2009) in the early morning
sky. It rises in the east-northeast about 2am alongside the reddish star
Aldebaran. At the Planetarium our star shows reproduce this arrangement so
you can preview it conveniently in the Star Theater. To see the show
schedule, go to www.rmsc.org, then scroll down and click on the orange
arrow next to "Strasenburgh Planetarium."
Thank you for taking the time to work with the Boy Scouts. Once again, I
can recommend the astronomy club's events as excellent places to
experience the sky and get good information. And thank you again for
thinking of us.
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