For many years now, there has been strange rumor circulating around the country claiming that Mars will appear as large as the moon in the night sky. Usually, a date is given for this event, and sometimes claims of pending doom or other calamities are included. The myth is often forwarded by email to hundreds of other people. If you get one of these emails, don’t forward it!

The Claim is Physically Impossible

The appearance of the Moon and the Mars in our nightsky is a result of their actual physical size in relationship to their distance from the Earth. Mars is actually about twice the size of the Moon, but it is so much further away that it is impossible for it to appear as large as the Moon.

The Moon is approximately 240,000 miles from Earth. The distance between Mars and the Earth varies since both the Earth and Mars are orbiting the Sun. However, when Mars is closest to the Earth (which is called opposition), Mars is about 48 million miles from the Earth. Did you catch that? At its closest, Mars will be 48,000,000 miles away from us compared the Moon’s 240,000 miles. That’s not even close!

Mars 2003 Opposition

Back on August 27th of 2003, when Mars was at opposition, it was especially close (since the opposition distance can vary from time to time because neither the Earth nor Mars have perfectly circular orbits). So, during that time, Mars was bigger and brighter than normal—however, it was still nowhere near as large or as bright as the moon in appearance since it was still 144 times further away than the Moon. In any case, this event stirred up a lot of excitement and may have been the source of the rumor.

The Bottom Line

Mars will never appear as large as the Moon in the night sky unless something beyond catastrophic occurs in our solar system which causes Mars to come much closer to the Earth than it currently is. Something of this magnitude could only be performed by God Himself.

For now, we should just recognize Mars as another object in the “host of heaven” that shows us God’s creative design and glory.

Tags: mars, hoax, opposition