Mars Hoaxes: Why We Believe

First, let’s get one thing out of the way: Mars is not going to look as big as the moon in the night sky tonight. Or tomorrow night. Or any other night, barring some sort of unforeseen planetary catastrophe.

Any emails or Facebook messages to the contrary are, alas, nothing but a hoax. Rumors that Mars would appear as large as the moon first emerged in 2003, when the Red Planet was actually passing closer than usual to Earth. Since then, the hoax has circulated every year and is going around yet again, despite multiple attempts by NASA to debunk this myth.

Internet hoaxes are a dime a dozen, but there seems to be something about Mars that keeps this particular hoax alive. Perhaps it’s a fascination with a planet that’s so close to Earth — or perhaps the real-life discoveries from Mars are so amazing that the hoax seems believable, suggested Joshua Bandfield, a senior research scientist at the Space Science Institute and the University of Washington.