No No Noo hapaaana, this is an enduring Urban legend!

Analysis: The text of this rumor was roughly accurate when a version of it first began circulating in the summer of 2003.

It was outdated by the time it went around again in 2005, however, and just plain false when it appeared for the third and fourth times in 2006 and 2007.

It flooded the Internet under the title "Two Moons on August 27" in 2008 and 2009. It is now 2010.

How many times can a "once in a lifetime" event occur?

Here are the facts. Seven years ago, on August 27, 2003, the oscillating orbits of Mars and Earth did, in fact, bring the two planets closer together than at any other time during the past 50,000 years. And though Mars never actually appeared "as large as the full moon to the naked eye" - not even close - it was indeed, for a few special days in 2003, among the brightest objects in the night sky.

October 2005 brought another well-publicized "close encounter," though in that case Earth and Mars were about 13 million kilometers further apart than during the 2003 event.

Nothing so spectacular is predicted for 2010.


http://urbanlegends.abou.../errata/a/two-moons.htm