Mars won’t attack

A WIDELY circulated e-mail hoax has people all over the world frenziedly scanning the skies at night.The e-mail claims that Earth is moving closer to Mars than ever before in recorded history, and that, on August 27, Mars will appear as large as the full moon to the naked eye.

It states that nobody alive today will ever see this phenomenon again. According to Nasa scientist Dr Tony Phillips, the only truth in this statement is that the Red Planet is indeed appearing bigger and brighter by the minute as Earth races towards it.But, he says, to the unaided eye it will look no different from a bright red star when the two planets are closest together on October 30 with a distance of 69 million kilometres between them.Normally the average distance between Earth and Mars is 225 million kilometres.The two neighbouring planets converge like this approximately every two years due to simple orbital mechanics.They can be compared to two runners on a circular racetrack around the sun.Earth runs fast on the inside lane, circling the course in 12 months, while Mars takes twice as long to circle the sun in the outside lane.So, every two years, Earth catches up with Mars and overtakes it.According to Phillips, Mars’s gravity would alter Earth’s orbit and raise terrible tides should it ever come close enough to Earth to appear as big as the moon.He says at a distance of 69 million kilometres Mars will be close enough to shine brighter than anything else in the sky except the Sun, Moon and Venus.It will be conspicuous enough to be noticed even by inattentive sky watchers when it rises at sunset and soars overhead at midnight.The closest encounter in recorded history was on August 27 2003, when the two planets were separated by 56 million kilometres.According to Nasa scientist Dr Tony Phillips, the only truth in this statement is that the Red Planet is indeed appearing bigger and brighter by the minute as Earth races towards it.But, he says, to the unaided eye it will look no different from a bright red star when the two planets are closest together on October 30 with a distance of 69 million kilometres between them.Normally the average distance between Earth and Mars is 225 million kilometres.The two neighbouring planets converge like this approximately every two years due to simple orbital mechanics.They can be compared to two runners on a circular racetrack around the sun.Earth runs fast on the inside lane, circling the course in 12 months, while Mars takes twice as long to circle the sun in the outside lane.So, every two years, Earth catches up with Mars and overtakes it.According to Phillips, Mars’s gravity would alter Earth’s orbit and raise terrible tides should it ever come close enough to Earth to appear as big as the moon.He says at a distance of 69 million kilometres Mars will be close enough to shine brighter than anything else in the sky except the Sun, Moon and Venus.It will be conspicuous enough to be noticed even by inattentive sky watchers when it rises at sunset and soars overhead at midnight.The closest encounter in recorded history was on August 27 2003, when the two planets were separated by 56 million kilometres.