chain emails, and why not to believe them

[rivendellrose]

There's a chain email going around claiming that on August 27, 2010, Mars will be as close as it's ever been to Earth and it will appear as large as the full moon in the sky.

This email is a fake. It had some truth to it... seven years ago, in 2003. It's been making the circuits through cyberspace every summer since. If you don't believe me (and why should you? My degree is in anthropology and English lit, not astronomy!) Take a look at Earthsky.org's page on the hoax, or the page on Hoax-slayer.com, or, my particular favorite, a post from 2008 about this email by the Bad Astronomer himself, Phil Plait. Who quite rightly points out that the photo being circulated isn't even a picture of Mars and our Moon - it's a picture of two moons of Saturn, including, at the bottom of the picture, some of Saturn's rings. Or, hell, for that matter, go read Phil Plait's original post from 2007, where he debunked it for the first time.

Mars is not ever as big as the Moon. If it was, we'd probably have some pretty serious tidal problems to show for the event.

By all means, go look in the sky. Here's a site that tells you how you can actually see Mars in July and August, and it's totally worth it. I've seen Mars through an observatory telescope just once, and it was amazing and very worthwhile (at the Jacobsen Observatory, which has very nice public sessions for local folks here in Seattle - go check them out! The time we went they had honest-to-god astronomers (including TAs and professors) out to talk to you about what you're seeing, and it's fantastic and fun, and you'll see awesome things and learn a lot!). But don't be fooled by lame chain emails that don't even bother to update seven years running. ♥

(Also, for amusement, here's the Snopes entry on the whole phenomenon of this email, including the original version that was sent out in 2003. Just because I'm kind of enjoying this whole project.)

Comments

[windrose.livejournal.com]

I was living in Tucson in 2003, which is a HUGE astronomy hotbed. The approach of Mars was all over the local news, and the University of Arizona even had special Mars viewings nights so that the public could come and use their telescopes. One of the things they stressed was that this was something like a once in 50 years event, which is one of the reasons I was sad that I never made it out to one of the observatories to see it.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Awww, that's awesome about the university's observatory! I remember the hubbub in 2003, but I'm pretty sure the best I managed was looking up unaided, at that time. Pretty, but not nearly as awesome as it would have been if, say, it had occurred to me to go to the observatory on campus (which, hell, I was even living on campus at that time). I'm right there with you in being sad I didn't make it out to see it for real.

One of my regrets from our AZ trip last year was not making it to an observatory. The night sky was so amazing out there - even unaided it blew my mind.

[windrose.livejournal.com]

They take astronomy very seriously in Arizona, especially around the University. One of the things I loved about living there was the care they took with light pollution even in the city. Mustn't mess with the view of the night sky more than necessary, you know.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

I did notice how dark it was out there at night, but I thought maybe it was just because Prescott is a tiny town. I wish most cities took that kind of thing seriously - even on a clear night, you have to get way out of the city to see anything here in Seattle. It's very sad.

[windrose.livejournal.com]

Well. I can't speak for other towns, but that's how it is in Tucson, anyway. And yes, Prescott is a very small town. Lots of those in Arizona, too. :)

[narsilion.livejournal.com]

Oops...Thanks for clearing that up..

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

It's not just you. From the sound of it, this thing is everywhere. I just wanted to look into it, and when I found out what was going on I wanted to get the word out as much as I could. :)

[ruuger]

I don't know if my friends are getting smarter, or if email has just fallen out of fashion among them, but I jusst realised that it's been ages since I've last gotten any kind of email forward...

As for Mars, our local scifi club was invited to a tour at the local observatory a few years ago (the woman who's in charge of the place was actually member of the small group of fans who back in the day organised a letter writing campaign that got a Finnish tv-channel to pick up B5) and I have to say that even though it was cool to see Mars through the telescope, it was completely out-awesomed by Saturn. It took my brain a while to accept the fact that yes, Saturn does look exactly like in the pictures :)

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

It's out of fashion, thank god - I get them from family, mostly.

And I'm soooo jealous that you got to see Saturn! The one time I went to an observatory Mars was the only thing really visible, and we didn't have the best atmospheric clarity, so it was still fairly fuzzy. Someday I want to go back to Arizona to some of the big observatories there and totally geek out. ♥ Until then, Seattle doesn't have the greatest visibility, but it's all I've got.

[alto2.livejournal.com]

By 1997, I could identify a probable fake email chain letter by its subject alone about 85% of the time, and for the 15% that remained, within the first paragraph (as it usually didn't take very long for the "FORWARD THIS TO EVERYONE YOU KNOW!!!!!1!!11!!" to show up).

It's 2010, and while I realize that I worked in tech support for a long time, it astounds me how many people still fall for this sort of thing. This one, to its credit, at least has some truth behind it (I suspect that, due to the nature of email forwarding and how long these things take to circulate, and how they never seem to stop circulating, this one has just seriously outlived its original purpose). What I don't understand are the ones where people forward emails about how Microsoft can track emails and will send you a nickel for everyone who gets this message after you pass it on (talk about no concept of exponential math AND no concept of how frakking terrifying it would be if MS really COULD track your emails), how the post office is somehow going to start charging you for every email you send, or how you should be on the lookout for this kidnapped child--complete with photo (what, your first action when your child is kidnapped is not the police or your local news but E-MAIL??? In what universe, people??)

I guess it just proves what's long been said: People are stooooooopid.

[rivendellrose.livejournal.com]

Agreed on chain letters - I hate 'em, personally, but they're still unavoidable in certain sectors of the internet, it seems.

I suspect that a lot of people don't even pause to think about this sort of thing, they just pass them on. Which, of course, is what the system is counting on. That said, it's a lot like the "SIGN THIS ONLINE PETITION" or "RETWEET THIS" or "LIKE THIS ON FACEBOOK" crap, just for a previous generation. I'm all for retweeting and passing on important stuff on Facebook (or not so important, but interesting, or whatever), but it does seem like a lot of people do so without thinking even for a minute "what's the advantage, and who's the advantage going to?"

The best example I can think of is that "Who Do You Write Like" thingy that was zipping all over online about a week and a half ago. Of course it was advertising vanity publishing, and of course everyone passing it around the blogosphere was causing the vanity press's Google ratings to skyrocket. But nobody thought about it until after the fact, when a few people (Making Light, etc) all of a sudden went "Hey, wait a minute!" It was kind of a "well, duh," moment for me - I'd noticed the ads, snerked that they thought they were going to catch people that way, but hadn't gotten quite as far as "oh, right, we're probably all upping their ratings by playing with this useless little toy, aren't we?"

In the case of this sort of thing, I'm going to go with 'people are thoughtless.' ...Although, yes, I will never argue that the vast majority of people are pretty damned stupid. I just don't think this particular case is as good an example as others. I did get this email sent to me by people I care about, after all, so... ;)