Mars Hoax piccie

[von Tom]

I've received a few enquiries about the appearance of Mars later this month and in response have prepared the following picture, based on an image I took of Mars and the Moon before last New Moon.

Cheers,

:)

Tom

[rustigsmed]

haha, great stuff Tom! hopefully now when people search 'Mars and moon' this will come up amongst the hoaxer's material!

sometimes people need to see with their eyes to believe and the photo works well!

cheers

Rusty

[Liz]

Excellent Tom!! Might snaggle that pic off you if the Hoax claims start to rise again. :thumbsup:

[von Tom]

No worries Liz - feel free to distribute ;)

[Ric]

Nice work Tom

Coincidentaly my father in law sent me the "Mars as big as the Moon" powerpoint so it is still doing the rounds.

I sent him a copy of your picture. :thumbsup:

[Matt Wastell]

This time of year again!

[astronobob]

Good work Tom :thumbsup: Dont know why no-one has thought of this before ?
Definately needs shairing & and thinking of having your name on it, but then again, dont need swamps of emails Lol, , never hear the end of it :thumbsup:

[Suzy]

Love it! Brilliant work, Tom.
I will be sharing this on the IIS fb page- thanks heaps! :thumbsup:
P.S. I love your infographics, they are always so coooool !!!!

[von Tom]

Thanks guys :)
August 27th is approaching so be prepared! :)

[leon]

Nice one Tom, might borrow that image as well, and spread the good word. LOL.

Leon

[Rob P]

Excellent work.

Had my first Moon/Mars hoax pic last week, so your explanation is quite timely.

[iceman]

Well done Tom, I've seen this pic popping up everywhere on FB!

[inline_online]

Hi Tom,
Great pic. With your permission i'll put this on my outreach astronomy FaceBook page.
Cheers,
Dan

[von Tom]

Thanks guys - no worries on using it wherever you see fit.

Cheers,

Tom

[oziemouse]

That's a nice explanatory graphic Tom. Does anyone have a theory as to why this hoax was started? I haven't seen any emails purporting Mars being larger than the moon, so from my perspective someone has put a lot of creative imagination in even coming up with such an idea! :)

Cheers

[LewisM]

How long is a piece of string... people do things for odd reasons. Like the Nibiru hoax. Or why do people create computer virii?

Sometimes it is pure uneducated speculation that gives birth to these wildly conjectured pieces of science :)

[DaveO]

Tom

Brilliant graphic. Posted a link and the image to FaceBook, Google+ and Twitter with a link back to here. Donna Burton picked it up and included in in "Astronomy News Daily": http://t.co/E2q5TEqmz7. Fame should soon follow for your efforts!

[cgoulden]

>>That's a nice explanatory graphic Tom. Does anyone have a theory as to why this hoax was started?<<
It started in 2003 when Mars was closer than it has been in 60,000 years. The press just got a bit over-exuberant about how close it actually was.

[Terry B]

I thought that the original cause was the idea that through a telescope at some non specified magnification, mars would be the same angular size as the full moon viewed with the naked eye. This applied years ago when Mars was relatively close to earth.
This idea got corrupted and the hoax is the result.

Terry

[fornax]

yeah, see here (http://www.snopes.com/science/astronomy/brightmars.asp) for origins of this story

[oziemouse]

Thanks for the background information guys . . certainly puts the Mars / Moon misunderstanding (read hoax?) into perspective.