Is Mars Really Closer than Ever this Month?

Posted by Lorren on August 17, 2009

My mom and I went outside this evening to see Mars (I went to visit them for the weekend on account of my grandfather’s memorial service). If you want to go see it, it does look great. Mom told me that it will be brighter now than it will ever be at any point in our lifetimes, and the next time Mars will be this close to us will be in 2000 more years.

Wanting to share this information with you, I did a search on the internet to find out more information to pass along. I discovered that this information is completely inaccurate. Snopes has more information about how bright Mars will be, or at least how it’s not as close as it will ever be in 2000 years.

For one thing, this event happened in 2003. So if you want to see Mars bigger than it ever will be in your lifetime, that ship has sailed. However, if you wait until 2018, you will get a view that was almost as spectacular as it was in 2003. Additionally, the 2000 years until the next close encounter was also wrong. In 2287, Mars will actually come closer to the Earth than it was in 2003. Most of us probably won’t be around then, but it’s no 2000 years…

I did see Mars tonight, and it was quite impressive. The planet was bright out. Evidently, it gets fairly close to the earth every 2 years though. So if you want to check out Mars, it looks great. But don’t fool yourself into thinking that you are seeing the astronomical phenomenon of the millennium.