And Other Silliness

There’s this zombie rumor making its way through Facebook and in emails and in various other corners of the Web about how Mars is SOOOOO close to Earth it’s going to look as big as the Full Moon. This is one of those things that just won’t die (like a zombie) and like a zombie, it describes something that doesn’t exist. Let’s just talk about this for a second.  The Moon is 238,000 miles away (384,000 km).  As of tonight (August 27th, 2013), Mars is more than 346 million kilometers away (that’s more than 215 million miles). Even if it were at its closest to Earth, Mars would still be more than 55 million kilometers away (more than 34. million miles).  You can do the math here. Compare 384,000 kilometers to 345 million kilometers. Even if both worlds were the same size (they’re not), there’s no way Mars would appear anywhere NEAR the size of the Moon in our skies.  In fact, it would appear a very small fraction the size of the Moon.

So, to avoid getting duped with stories like this, it’s best to use some common sense and think about how the numbers don’t add up. Mars is not going to look as big as the Full Moon ever… unless it gets much, much, much closer in its orbit. Which isn’t likely to happen given how orbits and the laws of physics work.

This Mars/Full Moon idiocy happens every year or so when somebody starts passing around info that was debunked a few years ago. In fact, we end up debunking it every year. And it keeps coming back, like a bad zombie, wanting more and consuming everybody’s brains.  Here’s a good description of how this whole Mars mess got started.

The bigger issue here is that people swallow this stuff whole because it’s on the Internet or somebody they knew sent it to them in email and it just HAS to be true. I often wonder how many people go out and actually LOOK at a Full Moon, or look at Mars and figure out for themselves that this perennial nonsense is just that: nonsense.

It reminds me of other silly claims that get tossed around Facebook or pop up on the Web. Stories like how there’s a mysterious planet named Nibiru that is headed for Earth. The same people (led by one ditzy woman who claims to speak with aliens) have been screaming about how this planet has been inbound for years and that scientists are hiding that fact. Yet, NOT one amateur astronomer has spotted it. Nor have any professionals.  People who watch the sky regularly just haven’t seen any evidence of it.  And, more to the point, planets don’t suddenly shift their orbits and head in to the Sun. At least, not without a lot of input from something to give them a push. No evidence for that either. Nobody’s seen anything of Nibiru, and with millions of skywatchers out there training their telescopes to the sky, you’d think at least one of them would have taken an image or made a note of it. But, no. There’s nothing. Nada. Zip. Zilch. Zero evidence for a mysterious planet that jumped its orbit and has been heading straight for Earth since the late 1980s (which is when I first heard of this scientifically unsupportable idea).

Most of you probably remember the Great Mayan “End of Time” hoax from last year. Not only did nothing happen that even remotely resembled the dire claims of all the “true believers” in mystical Mayan prophecies (there weren’t any, actually), but most of the celestial events that got linked to this non-event were scientifically improbable, too.

Extraordinary claims of amazing, mystical celestial events require extraordinary proof.  And, they also require that people do a bit more critical thinking before they swallow fantastical lies as “proof” (proof! mind you!) of such things as UFOs, rogue planets, aliens who talk only to one person (sort of like cosmic Cabots talking only to celestial Lowells), celestial angels, and all the other nonsense that gets floated around as somehow scientific. It’s not. Never will be.  But, it is good practice for building up your critical thinking skills and assembling a first-rate Bravo Sierra detector so that you won’t fall for nonsense again.