Have You Seen Mars?

If you haven't been reading the papers or the news or the spam your friends send you, here's something interesting in the month of August...

Planet Mars will be the brightest in the night sky starting August.
It will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye, and this will cultimate on August 27 when Mars comes within 34.65 million miles of Earth. Be sure to watch the sky on August 27 at 12:30 am. It will look like the Earth has 2 Moons.

Don't Miss it because the next time Mars may come this close is only in 2287, and NO ONE ALIVE TODAY will ever see it again.

"There is an email circulating in cyberspace saying that the red planet Mars will be exceptionally close on 27 August (2006). According to one version “It will look like the Earth has two moons”!!!

Once again this is a good lesson in not believing everything on the Internet. The email is a hoax describing in a somewhat exaggerated fashion the events of 2003. On 27 August 2003 Mars was only 55.8 million kilometres away which is almost the closest possible distance it can be from Earth. To the unaided eye it looked like a shining red beacon while through a telescope a small red disc could be seen with some dark features visible. Above is a great picture of the planet by the Hubble Space Telescope taken on 27 August 2003.

In late August this year (2006) Mars is faint and just visible after sunset low in the western sky."
- Mars is not approaching this August, Sydney Observatory