Saturday, August 05, 2006

Science Saturday I: Mars Retracts

Don't be duped by an email chain letter spreading across the Internet that claims the planet Mars will be closest to Earth at any time in recorded history on August 27 and will appear to be as large as the Moon.

It's a hoax.
Mars made its closest ever approach to Earth on August 27, 2003 and made another approach in October and November of last year, but on neither of these occasions did it look as large as the full moon and never will.
Mars is actually moving farther away from Earth and reaches superior conjunction (which means it is directly on the other side of the sun) on October 27.

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