Image via Wikipedia

You may have received an e-mail recently informing you of a pretty spectacular event: on August 27th, Mars will be closer to Earth than ever before. We all like to get excited about things like this, it’s a once in a lifetime opportunity to see something beautiful and spectacular; remember how out of hand the solar eclipse got? It all seems pretty aboveboard and exciting, why would your own mother forward you an e-mail without checking out it’s legitimacy? So you forward it to all your friends, they’ll love it! You’ll all have a little barbecue together and watch the skies as the natural beauty of the universe unfolds. Except, well, it happened 6 years ago.

On August 27th 2003, Mars was closer to the Earth than it had been in over 60,000 years. It was exciting, it was pretty, but it was 6 years ago. Every year ever since however, the e-mails that circulated in 2003 circulate again. Whoever’s doing this again, can you please stop?

Image credit Clinton Steeds

The claims made in the e-mail are exaggerated too. In August 1924, Mars was about the same distance away from us, not quite the 60,000 year gap claimed. The e-mail screams “NO ONE ALIVE TODAY WILL EVER SEE THIS AGAIN!”. Wrong again! True, the next time it will be as close will be in 2247, but there will be plenty of times in our lifetimes and our children’s lifetimes when Mars will be almost as close, and beautifully visible.

The moral of this story? It might be nice to believe what you read in forwarded e-mails, especially when it’s advertising something spectacular. But as any internet-savvy person knows, not everything you read can be believed. Just because your mother sent it to you doesn’t mean it’s true!