Astronomy is a unique field among the sciences. It is one where the objects of study are readily in our view - look up at night. This allows amateurs to get into the act and make important astronomical discoveries just like the professionals. We can't get direct access to these objects, however, because they are so far away, from a few hundred thousand miles to billions of light years away. So astronomical truths should be readily accessible to all.
But maybe not. Recently I have received two passitarounds concerning astronomy. Passitarounds are these items floating around on the Internet, usually as email. Some examples include getting help for a lost Indian girl, viruses "threatening" our computers which turn out to be hoaxesm, and pictures of cute kitties. All of these except the kittens are false hoaxes, however. What concerns me is that I have received two fo these concerning astronomy.
The first concerns an event that happened on 2003 August 27. At that point, Mars was in opposition to the Earth, so it was closest to the Earth, and it was up all night long. However, this was a special opposition, since Mars was also in an especially close perihelion, or closest approach, to the Sun. And further, it was closer than at any time for a few thousand years (but it will be even closer in 2287). Someone typed up a passitaround in 2003 and sent it off, hoping to inform as many people about this event. However, he did not put a year on his announcement. As a result, it keeps coming up over and over again, every year as August 27 approaches. The passitaround gets altered, even to the extent that the planet will appear as big as the full moon, perhaps motivated by the large picture of Mars through a telescope that appears in the passitaround. This gives people the impression that an especially close encounter will occur on 2004 August 27, 2005 August 27, 2006 August 27, 2007 August 27, and so forth and so on. On none of these dates was Mars especially close. In fact, Mars will be too close to the Sun to see on 2006 August 27. I received this passitaround no less than four times!! I got it once in 2003, when it expressed the truth. I got it in 2004, from someone I knew at church. I got it in 2006, first from a Toastmaster and then from another church friend. I told these people that this event already happened. It does nothing for the science of astronomy for this out of date passitaround to keep floating around.
I got another one just yesterday. It has the inscription " A scene you will probably never get to see, so take a moment and enjoy God at work at the North Pole. This is the sunset at the North Pole with the moon at its closest point. And you also see the sun below the moon. An amazing photo and not one easily duplicated." and features a picture of an enormous smile-like thin crescent Moon hovering just over a much smaller Sun near the horizon over an icy landscape including some water. I looked at this and could tell it was not for real. The Sun is 400 times wider than the Moon, but it is also 400 times farther away, so the two of them appear the same size in the sky. In this picture, the Moon appeared much larger than the Sun. Further, the Moon and Sun, both on the ecliptic, were one on top of each other. This implies that the zodiac or ecliptic goes overhead in the scene, but that never happens at the North Pole - the ecliptic rises to only 23 degrees below and above the horizon there. So I looked around and found the Scopes reference in the above hyperlink. I was shocked to learn that this was a work of art. I think it was an exceptionally good one, evoking all kinds of emotions in me. Someone simply swiped this piece of art, disregarding any copyrights, and threw it into a passitaround and started it circulating.
If you see either of these passitarounds, don't pass it around again! Instead, tell the people involved that the polar scene can't happen, that Mars can't be as large as the Full Moon or will approach as close as it did in 2003, and tell them to stop it there. In general, disregard passitarounds. They can spread a lot of untruth and hurt the cause of science in a demon and mainline-religion-dominated world.
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