No, the Moon Won't Turn Green on Wednesday: Once again, a skywatching hoax has gone viral

No, the Moon Won't Turn Green on Wednesday: Once again, a skywatching hoax has gone viral

To go forth with the abominable "Mars hoax," which claims that the Red Planet will arise as ample as the abounding moon in the sky; the "Nibiru cataclysm," a declared adverse appointment amid Earth and a ample all-embracing object; and "Zero-Gravity Day," if humans on Earth allegedly can acquaintance weightlessness, we now accept the "nights of the blooming moon."

This latest aberration to ambit the blogosphere claims that on Wednesday (April 20), and afresh on May 29, the moon will arise to about-face a adumbration of green. The abounding moon of April will action on Friday, April 22.

The account accustomed for the blooming alteration is that several planets are traveling to adjust (wrong!), causing the moon to afterglow with an eerie, greenish ablaze for about 90 minutes. This comedy is awfully attenuate (so we are told), and endure took abode way aback in the year 1596.

As has been the case with the artificial Mars, Nibiru and zero-gravity hoaxes, the green-moon bulletin implores you to "share this event!" And sadly, abounding humans accept allegedly been snookered into accomplishing just that.

Interestingly, the date accustomed for the aboriginal "moon of a altered color," April 20, is aswell "National Weed Day" — a day that celebrates the smoker of marijuana and cannabis ability in general. Pot enthusiasts accredit to the day numerically ("four twenty"), and the declared breach amid "green moons" is said to be 420 years.

These may not be coincidences. It could actual able-bodied be that whoever came up with the "green moon" adventure chose the April 20 date and/or the 420-year aeon as a advertence to National Weed Day, whose absolute blush is aswell green.

The aboriginal green-moon bamboozlement adumbrated that Earth's abutting acquaintance would change hue on May 29. The declared account was that the moon would be just 4 degrees from the green-hued planet Uranus in the sky, and would somehow access a blooming burnish from the abutting interaction. This will not happen, of course.

No, the Moon Won't Turn Green on Wednesday: Once again, a skywatching hoax has gone viral

Somehow, that antecedent adventure was amended, and April 20 came into the account as well. In any case, the nights of the "green moon" are annihilation added than an burghal legend. And if you're a affectionate clairvoyant of Space.com, you already knew that these belief are hoaxes, because you've consulted our account of the top skywatching contest of 2016. The blooming moon is not mentioned.

What I alone acquisition a lot of cutting about the "green moon" and added hoaxes are all of the emails I accept from acutely abreast and able people. These missives all alpha out with some alternative of the following:

"I apperceive this apparently isn't true, but can you verify this?"

As if there were some reasonable adventitious that, on a accustomed night, Mars would arise as ample as the moon in the sky, or that there would be a huge all-embracing article that would ultimately spell adversity for our planet, or that on a accustomed day, you could become weightless.

Or that the moon will about-face green.

Use your critical-thinking skills: If something sounds too weird, crazy

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