Mars Attacks!

As the office "astronomy guy" (or my favorite - the "astrology guy"), I have for several years now been accosted by all sorts of ignorant, but well-meaning people who query me either electronically or verbally something like, "Is it true that Mars is going to be as big as the full moon on August 27?"

I usually respond: No, it will be almost twice the size of the moon!

Of course, I'm not exactly lying, since the moon has a mean diameter of 3,474km, whilst the Red Planet has a mean diameter of 6,792km. It just won't appear to be significantly larger or brighter than normal.

After explaining that they have been misinformed, I note that if Mars ever appears to be as big as the full moon, none of us will ever have to worry about anything again (in the earthly sense).

This exchange just goes to show how good all this technology has been to actually making mankind any smarter - in the sense of being able to comprehend & discern things more rightly. But apart from that, here is the real state of the planets as viewed from earth (courtesy of Sky & Telescope):

Venus & Mars (magnitudes -4.0 & +1.1, respectively, both in or near Taurus) are in the east during dawn. Venus is a dazzler; Mars, well to Venus's upper right near Alderbara, is 110 times fainter. They're moving farther apart: from 13-deg to 16-deg separation this week.

Jupiter (magnitude -2.8, in Capricornus) shines low in the east-southeast during twighlight.

Saturn (magnitude +1.1, in Leo) is getting low in the west after sunset... Saturn's rings are narrowing, appearing only 2-deg from edge on. And they're getting very dim. The rings turn edge-on to the Sun and go black on August 10. They turn edge-on to Earth on September 4, but by then Saturn will be lost in the sunset.

BTW: "Magnitude" is the measure of how bright (or faint) an object is as viewed with the naked eye under dark skies. The star Vega (just about overhead at midnight at the moment) is the 0.0 star, that is, the standard for the scale. People with good eyesight under dark skies can sometimes see down to about 5.0. On the flip side, the full moon is about -12.9. Happy gazing!