Mars hoax goes viral on the Internet

Mars hoax goes viral on the Internet

Step outside tonight and be dazzled: the planet Mars will be as large as the moon in the night sky! It's a once-in-a-lifetime opportunity! Yeah, right...Don't believe it...It's just not true. But for the seventh consecutive year, the "Mars Hoax" is making the rounds on the Internet, spreading like some sort of malicious virus that infects everyone in your address book.

Here are the facts:

Mars right now is about 314 million kilometers from Earth, or just about as far away from us as the planet can get. Just after sunset tonight, Mars will rise in the western sky and look pretty much like an ordinary star that just happens to have a red tinge to it.

So why all the hubbub? The problem is an old email that dates back to a pass of the red planet on August 27, 2003. Space.com explains:

The e-mail declares that on the night of Aug. 27, the planet Mars will come closer to Earth than it has in 60,000 years, thereby offering spectacular views of the Red Planet. The commentary even proclaims, with liberal use of exclamation marks, that Mars will appear as bright as (or as large as) the full moon.

"Aug. 27" is actually Aug. 27, 2003. Mars made a historically close pass by Earth that night (34.6 million miles, or 55.7 million km). The Hubble Space Telescope used the opportunity to make some great images of Mars. But even then, to the naked eye Mars appeared as nothing more than an extremely bright yellowish-orange star, not at all like the full moon.

By Todd Halvorson, FLORIDA TODAY