Once in a two moon(s)!

Photo taken in June 2006 by Judy

Man, am I really disappointed!  I hate it when I find out something I was really looking forward to was a big old hoax!  Our neighbor had told us that there was going to be two moons tonight (on his birthday, Happy Birthday Old Man!), and I should have known better.  Two moons?  It actually has nothing to do with two moons, people somehow got a moon mixed up with Mars.

Actually, according to NASA: "The origins of the Hoax can be traced back to 2003 when Mars really did swell to unusual proportions. On August 27th of that year, Mars came within 56 million km of Earth—the nearest it has been in 60,000 years. People marveled at the orange brilliance of Mars in the night sky and crowded around telescopes for clear views of the planet's towering volcanoes, ruddy plains and glistening polar ice caps. At the height of the display, Mars was about 75 times smaller than the full Moon."

And the old fashioned "telephone" game started from there.  One science guy said to the next not so sciencey guy, use a 75x magnifier and take a look, and then he forgot to tell the next guy that important piece of information, and so on.  And here I sit on the 27th of August, seven (my god, I first typed in four!) years later, all excited thinking I'm going to see two moons, when I darn well know better...Thank goodness I have this blog to keep me researching and on the straight and narrow!