After sea water turning sweet and deities drinking milk, will two moons now shine in the sky? According to an e-mail circulating in cyberspace, the red planet mars will be exceptionally close to the earth on August 27 this year and "it will look like the earth has two moons".
However, astronomers are calling it a hoax. Nehru Planetarium director N Rathnashree calls it "The Great Mars Hoax". On August 27, there is nothing special connected with mars, she told PTI.
However, an interesting conjunction that can be seen early in the morning of the 27th - saturn and venus appearing very close to each other, low in the eastern skies, she said. So close to each other, that they might look like a single object. But one will need clear skies low in the eastern horizon to see this event, Dr Rathnashree said.
The hoax e-mail chain started following the mars close approach of 2003, which was an actual event. On August 27, 2003 mars was closer to earth than it had been for several thousands of years before or after.
It appeared bright and quite spectacular in the eastern skies in the evenings and people world over enjoyed viewing mars at that time. At its most spectacular, it did not still
appear as big or as bright as the moon -- it could never do that without a drastic change in the orbits of mars and earth," she explained.
The "as big as the full moon" rumour would have started from a statement by astronomers, explaining the mars opposition that happens about once every two years, when the position of mars is "analogous" to the position of the full moon, she said.
That is, when we see a full moon, the earth is in the middle, with the moon on one side and the sun on the other.
Similarly, when mars is at opposition, earth is in the middle, mars is on one side and sun on the other, she said.
According to the Sydney Observatory, "The e-mail is a hoax describing in a somewhat exaggerated fashion the events of 2003. On August 27, 2003 mars was only 55.8 million km 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. In late August this year, mars is faint and just visible after sunset low in the western sky," Nick Lomb, curator of astronomy at the observatory explained on its website.
Dr Rathnashree said several people by now, must have received the hoax e-mail that claims that mars will be closer to earth on the August 27 this year than ever before, that it will not be this close again for thousands of years and also some sensational claim about it appearing as bright or large as the moon.
Some news and electronic media have actually reported this as an event to come, before astronomers were contacted to clarify. Many people now are eagerly waiting to see this phenomenon on August 27 and are calling up planetaria in their neighbourhood to ask if they are making arrangements to observe this event, she said.