{"id":19380,"date":"2016-05-19T18:37:27","date_gmt":"2016-05-19T10:37:27","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/wp-productionenv-bjg9h2g2bgg5b8aa.southeastasia-01.azurewebsites.net\/news\/holy-hubble-see-a-super-sized-mars-get-bigger-than-its-looked-for-a-decade\/"},"modified":"2016-05-19T18:37:27","modified_gmt":"2016-05-19T10:37:27","slug":"holy-hubble-see-a-super-sized-mars-get-bigger-than-its-looked-for-a-decade","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/starpath.global\/news\/holy-hubble-see-a-super-sized-mars-get-bigger-than-its-looked-for-a-decade\/","title":{"rendered":"Holy Hubble! See a super-sized Mars get bigger than it\u2019s looked for a decade"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"Mars
This image of Mars was captured on May 12 by the Hubble Space Telescope\u2019s Wide Field Camera 3 and UVIS. Click on the image for an annotated view. (Credit: NASA, \/ ESA \/ STScI \/ AURA \/ J. Bell \/ ASU \/ M. Wolff \/ STScI)<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

For the next couple of weeks, Mars will look bigger than it\u2019s looked in a decade! And no, this is not a hoax.<\/p>\n

Every August, the Internet goes a little crazy over claims that the Red Planet is about to look twice as big as the moon in the night sky. That viral hoax got started in 2003, when some folks scrambled up reports about Mars\u2019 historic close approach during that summer.<\/p>\n

Mars isn\u2019t coming quite as close as it did back then, and it certainly won\u2019t be anywhere near as big as the moon. But by May 30, the distance between Earth and Mars will shrink to 46.8 million miles, which is closer than any other approach since 2005.<\/p>\n

That closeness is due to the position of Earth and Mars in their elliptical orbits as they line up with each other and with the sun. On Sunday, Mars will be directly opposite the sun, looming right in the center of the night sky at astronomical midnight. The occasion is known as opposition.<\/p>\n