Two moons rumours… cis sungguh saya telah tertipu. Ini adalah gara2 sepucuk email yang diterima dan diforward oleh teman-teman secara berjemaah:

Don’t miss it out…

This phenomana is not worth missing.Put this in your remember memo

Dear All,

Don’t miss to see – TWO MOON ON 27 AUGUST*

*27th Aug the Whole World is waiting for………….*

Planet Mars will be the brightest in the night sky starting August.

It will look as large as the full moon to the naked eye. This will cultivate on Aug. 27 when Mars comes within 34.65M miles of earth. Be sure to watch the sky on Aug. 27 12:30 am. It will look like the earth has 2 moons. The next time Mars may come this close is in 2287.

Share this with your friends as NO ONE ALIVE TODAY will ever see it again

Saya adalah seorang yang suka menikmati keajaiban alam, terutama yang melibatkan alam angkasa. Maklumlah dahulu pernah bercita2 nak jadi ahli astronomi macam Dr. Mazlan Idris, tapi sayangnya lemah pula dalam matapelajaran Fizik maka hasrat tersebut terpaksa dilupakan, maka hanya mengambil subjek yang menyentuh Fizik yang mudah difahami sahaja. Tapi saya terus mengikuti sedikit2 perkembangan dunia astronomi.

Saya paling suka menikmati malam2 bersama bulan purnama dan bintang-bintang sambil menyanyikan lagu Backstreet Boys (apa kaitan ntah). Tapi itu dulu lah, semasa bersekolah, sekarang menikmati bintang2 bersama anak-anak di dalam rumah saja.

Bila tersebarnya berita tentang fenomena menarik ni, saya terus masukkan dalam kalendar, set alarm, siap tunggu dan buat countdown lagi. Hanya lah selepas melihat bulan dan berasa “Besarnya bulan. Takkan la Marikh akan jadi sebesar ini? Berapa ribu batu tu jarak Marikh dengan bumi” barulah saya sedar saya telah ditipu oleh kejahilan sendiri 🙂

Two Moons in 2010 is a Hoax

Updated: Friday, 27 Aug 2010, 11:28 AM EDT
Published : Friday, 27 Aug 2010, 10:59 AM EDT

(CANVAS STAFF REPORTS) – For the seventh year in a row, NASA said, people will be staying up Friday night to see if Mars appears as big as a full moon.

E-mails have been circulating recently saying Mars will approach Earth and make it appear as though there are two moons in the sky.

“NO ONE ALIVE TODAY WILL EVER SEE THIS AGAIN,” the e-mail says.

NASA’s explanation?

“News flash: It’s not true.”

On Aug. 27, Mars will be about 314 million kilometers (about 195 million miles) away, “about as far as it can get.” The planet will shine in the western sky after sunset and appear to be a tiny red star.

The space agency said if people didn’t know it was there they probably wouldn’t even notice it.

People shouldn’t necessarily be disappointed. “If Mars did come close enough to rival the Moon, its gravity would alter Earth’s orbit and raise terrible tides,” NASA said.

The origin of the “two moon” hoax can be traced back to Aug. 27, 2003, when Mars came within 56 million kilometers (about 35 million miles) away and appeared to be unusually big. Snopes.com said that’s the closest it has been in almost 60,000 years.

Snopes said Mars does come almost as near to the Earth every 15 to 17 years, but without magnification it wouldn’t appear significantly larger or brighter than during other times when it is close.

The EarthSky website said Mars was substantially brighter on Jan. 27 when it came the closest to the Earth that it’s been this year. It “doubled up” with the Moon on Jan. 29, but its diameter was still only 1/140th the diameter of the full Moon.

As far as the next time it will be as close or closer to the Earth as it was in 2003, Snopes said it would be 2287.

(Sumber : MyFoxAtlanta.com)

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 header “Two Moons on August 27” in 2008, and as a slide show entitled “Mars Spectacular” in 2009.

It’s 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.

(Sumber : UrbanLegend.about.com)

No wonder this phenomenon tak ada coverage dalam mana2 media. Biasanya kalau ada fenomena yang jarang2 berlaku pasti stesen TV akan cover. Nampaknya saya masih jauh ketinggalan dalam dunia kaji angkasa. Kena banyak membuat ulangkaji terhadap khabar-khabar angin dan fakta yang berlaku di masa lampau gamaknya.

Bila berberbicara tentang ilmu kaji bintang ni, sebenarnya banyak fakta2 tentang alam semesta yang dah tertulis al-Quran. Tentang peredaran planet, galaksi, bintang2 dan sebagainya. It’s an amazing feeling bila membaca tentang ayat2 yang menyebut kejadian siang dan malam, galaksi2 dan sebagainya. Terasa ruginya kalau tak pernah nak mendalami isi al-Quran.