This is your yearly reminder: Mars will not be as big as the Moon on 27 August 2016 - or any other year, for that matter.
The classic internet hoax lives on, as seen in this viral post in Azerbaijani:
But it's not the first time that this hoax has grabbed people's attention. Last year, I almost fell for this post that a Facebook friend shared:
Imgur
In this post were two photos showing Mars to be similar in size to the Moon - though anyone with an eye for detail can tell that the photo is a fake. The red object in the photo is just a crimson version of the Moon superimposed next to the natural Moon, and not some giant version of Mars.
Along with the photos is a caption stating that on 27 August 2015, at exactly 12:30am, the Moon and Mars will be side by side, illuminating the night sky. The same information, according to Google Translate, was on this year's post.
It's a hoax that's been around in one form or another since 2003.
When the hoax began 13 years ago, it was sparked by a real, rare event. Mars came closer to Earth than it ever had in recorded history, a distance of just 35 million miles (56 million kilometres).
This is what it looked like:
John Nemy/Carol Legate of Whistler, B.C./NASA
Some took the news of the red planet's close approach way too far and said that it would appear as large as the Moon, but that's not the case at all.
Here's what would happen if Mars really was as big as the Moon
To clear the air, in 2005 NASA said in a post: "If Mars did come close enough to rival the Moon, its gravity would alter Earth's orbit and raise terrible tides."
No such tides swept the planet in 2003, and none will do so at the end of the month as the Facebook post implies. Even more insulting, perhaps, is the fact that Mars will not even be particularly near Earth at the end of this month.
The time and date provided in the post are a mere perpetuation from the 2003 time and date and do not coincide with any significant celestial event.
We will not see another close approach of Mars like the one in 2003 again until 2287. But, unfortunately, seeing Mars the size of the Moon likely won't ever happen.
Nor, I suppose, would we want it to.
This article was originally published by Business Insider.
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