The astronomy community has advised readers since 2004 of this erroneous post, yet every year it comes around again to fool readers into thinking Mars will be as bright as the moon.

I can think of one positive thing about this silly falsity: It gets people outside at night to see if it is true.

My questions to the public :

1. Don’t you think that if an object in the sky was “as bright as the full Moon” you would be able to see it in the daytime as well as at night?

2. If there was an object as bright as this headed toward us, wouldn’t you be hugging your loved ones and asking forgiveness of those you may have wronged?

Let’s explore a few facts about Mars in reference to its proximity to our home planet.

Mars’s orbit brings it close to earth every two years. This year, however, is not one of them.

In 2003, Mars was 35 million miles (56 million kilometres) away from Earth, which was its closest in 60,000 years. It was 85 times brighter in comparison as viewed through a telescope, yet a far cry from “full Moon” brightness.  Mars’s orbit brings it this close to us every 15 to 17 years and astronomers and those with telescopes get all warm and excited and send out notices for public viewing of this phenomena which is referred to as perihelic opposition. To the unaided eye, however, Mars appeared as a reddish hued star in the night sky and if you hadn’t known about it, the event would have gone unnoticed. In October 2005, Mars made another close approach and again in December 2007, albeit not as spectacular astronomically speaking, as the 2003 observing opportunity which we will have the chance to experience again in 2018.

Next year we will surely see the reappearance of the Mars hoax email. Now that you know the facts, please delete it, yet feel free to roam outside and enjoy our night sky at any time during the year.

In fact, naming of planets has always attracted controversy: Uranus narrowly avoided being called after King George III and Eris was nicknamed Xena before the IAU stepped in to name it. So, this open competition is a welcome way of determining what a new minor planet should be named.

For those of you in the line of the fly-over, you will most likely hear a double sonic boom associated with the high speeds of re-entry.

If any of you are fortunate enough to go to the 40th anniversary of Apollo 13 mission, please send a report to us.

In the photo L to R: Jim Lovell, John Swigert, and Fred Haise.

Viewing the space vessels as they pass across the sky is an easy thing to do, providing your weather is good. You do not need a telescope or binoculars to see them. Just find out where and when to look, then go out and look for a bright object, or objects, smoothly crossing the area of sky where they are predicted to go. They will not “zoom” or blink or leave a trail.

When you see these objects, think about the astronauts, past or present, who have traveled on them.

Many people have yet to see Mercury, since Mercury is so close to Sun. Venus should help to find the smallest planet during the next week.

A small shrimp-like creature, a marine life called amphipod, was seen when scientists lowered a camera into an 8-inch hole in an Antarctic ice shelf. The scientists were studying the depletion of glacial ice, but they discovered a glint of color in the video feed. It turned out that the small creature was swimming in the freezing waters that filled the hole.

Glaciologists have seen sea life under the cold waters before, but this life form was new to them. If the shrimp-like creature can survive in -2 to 1 C temp waters on Earth, who is to say that life (as we know it) could not exist in the frigid fluids of the outer worlds?

See it for yourself: video of the 3-inch-long creature.

Since Earth is not a perfect sphere, it has axial shifts all of the time to try to find spherical equilibrium. How do the big earthquakes affect things? “The Chilean quake shifted enough material to change the mass balance of our entire planet,” said Richard Gross, JPL. The shift in material caused the wobble in Earth’s axis to increase by about three inches. The wobble changes as Earth’s mass progresses toward being a perfect sphere. A normal axial shift is about 10 centimeters per year, but the 8.8 magnitude quake hurried it along this year.

A greater time shift was also caused by the quake. The Earth day was shortened by about 1.26 microseconds within 24 hours, a negligible amount. Winds and tides can affect the rotation of Earth hundreds of times more than an earthquake can, but we still do not notice the change.

As Earth rotates, wobbles, shifts, and revolves, changes are always going on. Sometimes we notice them, sometimes not.