What is the Mars email hoax?

Answer 1

Each August since 2003, widely-circulated and misleading internet posts and e-mails have erroneously reported a "close approach of Mars to Earth, leading to spectacular views of the planet". But there will be nothing spectacular about the appearance of Mars in August, 2009. The reports are relabeled copies from August, 2003, when Mars was at one of its closest approaches to Earth in their respective orbits. The distance was still 34.65 million miles (55.76 million kilometers). These close approaches occur when the aphelions of Earth coincide with perihelions of Mars on the same side of the Sun. In 1971, Mars was nearly as close as in 2003. Although Mars looked substantially brighter in 2003, it was still only a reddish point oflight. The actual suggestion was that a 75X magnification of the planet would make it appear the size of the full moon. But an accompanying photograph was a magnified 4000X photo by the Hubble space telescope. At its brightest, Mars never surpasses the brightness of the planet Venus.