Crikey

Never mind a “bad moon rising” tonight, when the full moon will be swallowed by a bloody looking total eclipse lasting several hours.

In the early hours of the morning, after the eclipse has passed, two bright red eyes will appear over the north eastern sky.

Red planet Mars is passing near red star Aldebaran.

The baleful sight, which is more obvious in the northern hemisphere (but visible all over Australia) is already exciting the superstitious.

And that is nothing compared to the persistent nonsense that is being spread about Mars appearing in the sky as “large as the moon” on the same night as the lunar eclipse.

That urban myth began in August 2003, when the gap between Earth the third planet and Mars the fourth planet was as small as it had been for tens of thousands of years.

But the red planet, no matter how favourable the planetary alignments, is always just a bright planet when seen by the naked eye from our blue planet.

And the “scary” red eyes seen well from just after 1am in most locations will drift further apart in the following week.