Moon and Mars? No, its Jupiter!

A friend of mine had emailed (seemed the story is circulating all over the internet) that on 27 August, Mars will be the closest to Earth. It was supposed to be close to the moon in the night sky (I think 24 August was full moon).


I took this photo at about 11 pm. It was a very clear night (light scattered clouds). My camera is not as good as the human eye. To register the planet (the small dot below the moon), the moon was over-exposed in the photo. Checking on the internet (EarthSky), it seemed that there was a hoax email going round the internet on Mars being closest to us for the next 177 years. The graphics even showed Mars about 1/3 the size of the moon!

It turns out that in August 2010, Jupiter will be in the night sky. So the planet below the moon (in the sky tonight) was Jupiter. This was also confirmed by Google Sky Map on my Android handphone. In fact Uranus is just behind Jupiter (probably too faint to be seen by the naked eye)

Talking of Jupiter, there was a lot of discussion on a forum board in the internet that Jupiter had been detected to be undergoing ignition and will become a sun in a few weeks!! All these to be taken with a large pinch of salt.