posted July 21, 2005 12:38 AM         

By August 27, Mars will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye.
>Mars will be easy to spot. Read this !!!!
>
>
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>Mars is going to be a second moon of earth for a day.

The Red Planet (MARS) is about to be spectacular! This month and next,
>Earth is catching up with Mars in an encounter that will culminate in
>the closest approach between the two planets in recorded history.
>The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287. Due to the way
>Jupiter's gravity tugs on Mars and perturbs its orbit, astronomers can
>only be certain that Mars has not come this close to Earth in the last
>5,000 years, but it may be as long as 60,000 years before it happens
>again.
>The encounter will culminate on August 27th when Mars comes to within
>34,649,589 miles of Earth and will be (next to the moon) the brightest
>object in the night sky. It will attain a magnitude of -2.9 and will
>appear 25.11 arc seconds wide. By August 27, Mars will look as large as
>the full moon to the naked eye. Mars will be easy to spot.
>At the beginning of August it will rise in the east at 10p.m. and reach
>its azimuth at about 3 a.m. by the end of August when the two planets
>are closest, Mars will rise at nightfall and reach its highest point in
>the sky at 12:30a.m. That's pretty convenient to see something that no
>human being has seen in recorded history. So, mark your calendar at the
>beginning of August to see Mars grow progressively brighter and brighter
>throughout the month.

posted July 21, 2005 12:50 AM         

quote:

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If you remember, this already happened a couple of years ago. This article is old. This is not going to happen in 2005, it alreay happened in (if I recall correctly) 2003.
-Sol

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Is that right? I will feel a bit silly if this is true...LOL

posted July 21, 2005 12:53 AM         

Thanks.

posted July 21, 2005 04:39 AM         

Thanks for posting this anyhow ~ it may be a strange coincidence but I picked up a book about August 27th a couple of days ago in the library.

Remember Krakatoa? I picked up the book; The Day the World Exploded August 27, 1883 - Simon Winchester I don't remember hearing of it ever, but as the book states it seems to be in everyone's wordly consciousness somehow. Might be a reason why you posted this after all

I'll post a bit from the book review here in case anyone's interested; http://www.suite101.com/article.cfm/everyday_geology/102684

quote:

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August 1883. Events happening on a tiny island in the Sunda Strait between the Indonesian islands of Sumatra and Java were about to dramatically change the world. On the morning of August 27 the volcanic island of Krakatoa erupted in an earth-shattering explosion. Krakatoa’s eruption was dramatic on many scales. Tsunami and volcanic ash devastated many of the villages that sat on the coastline of the Sunda Strait on both Java and Sumatra. In the capital of the Dutch colony Batavia (present day Jakarta) day turned into night from ash. The sound of Krakatoa’s explosion was heard in Bangkok, Manila, Perth, and Rodriguez Island - nearly 3000 miles from its source! The pressure wave caused by the eruption displaced barometers in dozens of fashionable gentlemen’s clubs across Europe and was later found to have traveled around the globe at least seven times! Once it was over nothing but two small islands remained of the once mighty volcanic island. Krakatoa was the largest volcanic eruption in recorded human history and the recent connection of many countries by telegraph cable made it one of the first truly global events.

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By the way, thanks - I had no idea Mars looked as big as a full moon a couple of years ago