Don’t bother to stay up on Wednesday night for a close look at the red planet. It’s not going to appear “as large as the full moon to the naked eye”.

The widely circulated email titled “Mars Spectacular” is a hoax. It claimed that no one alive will ever see the red planet from as close as it will be on Wednesday.

The red planet is nowhere close to the Earth. The two planets will be separated by 358 million kilometres on Wednesday. Mars’s closest encounter with the Earth in the past 57,000 years was on August 27, 2003, when the distance between the two was 55.758 million kilometres.

Debiprosad Duari, the director (research and academics) of MP Birla Planetarium, said: “Even in 2003, Mars appeared less than one-70th the moon’s angular size.”

The two planets will come close again on January 29, 2010, but not as close as in 2003. For that one would have to wait a couple of centuries.

“Mars will look marginally bigger than it did five years ago when it comes close to the Earth again on August 29, 2287,” added Duari.