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Théodore Doucet
Editor – MétéoMédia
Tuesday, July 24, 2018 at 11 h 46 – A false information circulates virally for a few days on social networks: according to her, Mars will appear as big as the Moon during the lunar eclipse, very real this one, which will take place on Friday.
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On July 27th, therefore, the full moon will be entirely covered by the shadow of the Earth – it will be even the longest eclipse of the century.
At the same time, the Red Planet approaches the Earth for several months, as never since 2003. The two stars will be closer to each other on July 31st. Moreover, you may have noticed in recent weeks this very bright red point in the southern direction in the night sky …
It did not take more coincidence for the rumor that Mars will appear as big as our natural satellite is online. "A cosmic event that happens only every 35,000 years," it says in an article that has generated more than 200,000 interactions on Facebook since its publication on July 22.
This statement is obviously inaccurate. This false information regularly comes back to the fore, so much so that the Canadian Space Agency has dedicated a special page to destroy this myth, on its website.
When they are closer, the Earth and Mars will still be distant 57.6 million kilometers, a distance more than 100 times greater than that between our planet and the Moon (300,000 to 400,000 km). Never Mars has appeared the same size as the Moon, from our point of view terrestrial, and this fact will not change anytime soon.
The hoax at the origin of this cyber-rumor comes from the parody site Science Info , which, like Le Journal de Mourréal, constructs absurd articles for humorous purposes. But in the era of social networks where it is much faster to share an "information" than to read it entirely, some people are having themselves.
By clicking on the "About" tab, Science Info administrators openly reveal their raison d'être:
"That's it, you just have to be a little curious and click on this link to discover that this site of scientific information publishes totally false information, even archifausses and moreover, not even true.
It is not always easy not to fall into the trap, so you have to take the time to learn about information before sharing it. If it's not for you, do it at least for the others!
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