The Notorious Mars Email

"Mars is coming! Mars is coming!"

That's a familiar subject for email that clogs Exchange servers about every two years about how Mars will be as large as a full moon. This, of course, is totally false. The picture above is often pictured in the email. Stop the email people! We all fell for it once (and don't say you didn't look!) but we know its not that big!

However, there is a bit of truth. Mars will be in the best viewing position for years and it will blaze with a magnitude of -1.6 by December 9th; brighter even than Sirius. You can find Mars between Taurus and Gemini.

Every 26 months, the orbits of Earth and Mars come closest. This makes Mars' magnitude greater and astronomers get their best every-other-year look at the Red Planet.

Pollux: The Twin's Secret

β Geminorum (more commonly called Pollux) is the head of the twin Pollux in the Gemini constellation. Pollux has a secret he has been hiding for millions of years though.

Pollux is the only star readily visible in the sky that has a confirmed companion (i.e. exoplanet). For thousands of years this has been a significant star and last year it was confirmed for a fact that Pollux has a companion star. So when you look at the head of the twin Pollux, you are looking directly at a confirmed solar system with orbitting planets.

A few interesting facts about Pollux:

• Even though it has the "Beta" designation, it is actually brighter than α Geminorum, more commonly known as Castor.
  
• Castor and Pollux are twins; however, the stars representing them couldn't be more different. Castor is a super hot white sextuple star system; Pollux is a yellow-orange giant.
  
• Pollux is the only star readily visible in the night sky with a confirmed star system.