If you’re a frequent peruser of the blogosphere or various social media websites, odds are you’ve already heard the big news: this Wednesday, April 20, 2016, due to a highly improbable series of events involving Uranus, the moon will appear to be glowing green in the night sky.
Certainly, if it’s on the Internet, it must be true, right? Obviously, in this instance, the answer is an emphatic “no, of course not!” The moon will not be interacting with Uranus, and it will not be green, no matter what your wife’s friend’s second cousin posted on Facetube or Twitbook.
As CNET and Space.com confirm, this is the merely latest in a long line of hoaxes designed to target stargazing enthusiasts, joining the likes of the Mars hoax (which had claimed that the Red Planet would appear to be as large as the moon in the night sky) and Zero Gravity Day, a 24 hour period in which people on Earth supposedly would be able to experience weightlessness.
So how did this ridiculous rumor get started, anyway?
The aforementioned publications, along with the rumor-debunking website Snopes, have traced the origin of the Green Moon myth to a since-deleted social media post that included a doctored stock photo of the moon and included a message touting the forthcoming special event.
The story spread like wildfire, as things tend to do on the Internet, and two different dates were attached to the supposed Green Moon: the date from the original post, May 29, 2016, and April 20 – this Wednesday, which also happens to be National Cannabis Day, according to Space.com. On a related note, the last time this event supposedly happened? The year 1596, or 420 years ago (for those not in the know, 420 is slang for pot use and marijuana culture).
Snopes believes that the original post was meant as a joke, and lost context when it went viral. Interestingly enough, the creator of the hoax went to the effort of explaining what would cause this Green Moon. As the story went, Uranus would be located just four degrees away from the moon in the sky, and that this planetary alignment would cause the moon to glow in a greenish light, with some reports noting that the unique coloration would last for just 90 minutes.
An interesting tale, but obviously a bunch of malarkey. If you were hoping to catch a glimpse of the Green Moon, don’t be too disappointed, because if you live in the Northern Hemisphere, you can still get a good look at rarely seen planet Mercury right now. Just look for it over the horizon and to the east of the sun about 30 minutes after twilight between now and the end of May.
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Image credit: Space.com
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