August 27 Mars size of moon

GlennaMaddy

I was spammed today, August 27 mars will be at it's closest to the earth, and easily visible like a distant moon.
Is this legit?

slade_x

GlennaMaddy wrote:

I was spammed today, August 27 mars will be at it's closest to the earth, and easily visible like a distant moon.
Is this legit?

than when, closer than yesterday? in 2003 it passed between just 30-40 million miles away.

Mars's moons would be considered distant moons and are easily visible with a telescope, of course with no actual details with your average one

As far as saying mars will appear the size of the moon (luna);

The moon is about 250,000 miles away and is just over 2000 miles in diameter

Mars at its closest passing in thousands and thousands of years came approximately 35,000,000 miles (35 million) in august 2003 and has a diameter just over 6,500 miles.

so what do you think?

At that close mars will appear roughly 5-6 times larger in the sky, but still will remain undistinguishable to even the brightest stars to someone who doesnt know what they're looking at with the naked eye.

Currently i'd say mars is no more than 65 million miles from earth as i type this. It wont make a passing like it did in 2003 for another 2 centuries so in the 23rd century. The passing in 2003 was a once in a lifetime chance

if i remember correctly the average distance between mars and earth is around 160 million miles and about 250 million miles away when its on the opposite side of the sun

The opportunistic time to travel or send something to mars or even to view it is when its in alignment which on average is about 50 million miles from earth (by alignment i mean if you were to draw a line from the sun and go right through earth, the line could continue and pass right through mars also) see a quicky mspaint below if i didnt explain it right:

Dr Pepper

If anybody's interested, check out the first link below for a chart which shows the positions of the planets in August 2003 as slade_x described. You can see from the diagram that both Earth (blue) and Mars (red) are sitting in a line with the Sun and they are both close to the point where the gap between their orbits is at it's smallest (hope I haven't made that too cryptic!).

25 August 2003: (Earth-Mars distance = 0.37 AU*)
http://www.heavens-above.com/planets.asp?Y=2003&M=8&D=25&H=9&Lat=53.400&Lng=-6.467&Loc=Dunboyne&TZ=GMT&SZ=600

GlennaMaddy, the following link shows the situation on 27 August this year but, as you can see, there is nothing particularly special about the positions of Earth and Mars:

27 August 2007: (Earth-Mars distance = 1.18 AU)
http://www.heavens-above.com/planets.asp?Y=2007&M=8&D=27&H=9&Lat=53.400&Lng=-6.467&Loc=Dunboyne&TZ=GMT&SZ=600

Anyway, getting back to the original question, Mars is clearly visible these nights and will be for the remainder of this year (appearing right beside the moon on Christmas eve!). If anyone wants tips on where and what time to spot it, let me know and I'll post it, otherwise, check out Stellarium (excellent free program which shows the night sky in your area at any time)

* AU = Astronomical Unit, a term used to describe astronomical distances (generally within the Solar System) - 1 AU is the distance between the Earth and the Sun

Flukey

The e-mail is a bit of spam, and has no basis. It appears every so often. None of the planets ever seem anywhere close to being as large as the Moon in our sky. The 4 main ones that we see with ease, Mars, Venus, Jupiter and Saturn, are just like very bright stars. Jupiter is visible low towards the southwest in the evening for a while, but has set after a few hours.

Lucas10101

In December, Mars will outshine the brightest Star in the sky as it'll be closer in a while, but certainly not on the scale that spam suggests.

Flukey

The brightest as we see it, is the Sun, and Mars won't outshine that. It'll have difficulty in even challenging Sirius, the brightest in the night sky. It won't be much brighter than it, if at all.

Lucas10101

It will be brighter than Sirius in December Flukey. It's Magnitude for some reason will be slightly higher than it.

Flukey

I stand corrected.

Collie D

Flukey wrote:

I stand corrected.

Same here. Wish I'd checked this thread before freezing my arse off on the balcony squinting into the sky for five minutes