The internet has never run out of hoaxes, and with social media use becoming increasingly popular these days, it appears that people will only continue to get more of these fallacies.
One recent viral hoax claims that the moon is set to turn green on Wednesday, April 20, which experts vehemently deny. However, despite its dubious assertion, the "green moon" seems to have gotten many people talking about it on the internet.
The rumor about the moon turning green started when a Facebook user named Miles Johnson posted a picture of a green full moon. The text on the image marks the date of the celestial event, May 29, though in some versions of the story, the date is set to April 20.
How will the supposed greening of the moon take place? Johnson explained that it will be caused by the green planet Uranus parking itself only four degrees away from the moon. He said that this in turn will make Earth's natural satellite appear green in the sky as well.
Johnson has been asking other social media users to share the news about the green moon.
While the post piqued the interest of some people online, having been shared more than 38,000 times on Facebook alone, space experts and hoax busters are eager to shoot down this viral rumor.
Joe Rao of Space.com pointed out that the date given for the green moon event, April 20, interestingly coincides with "National Weed Day," a day meant to celebrate the smoking of marijuana as well as the culture of cannabis use in general.
National Weed Day is referred to as "four twenty" by pot enthusiasts, the same digits as the number of years since the last green moon occurred in 1596.
Rao said that the circumstances behind the green moon rumor and National Weed Day may not be as coincidental as they seem, especially since the object of the holiday, marijuana, is predominantly green as well.
Snopes.com, a website dedicated to debunking various internet hoax, also highlighted that the image of the moon used in Johnson's post came from a stock photo created in 2008. The stock image was also used in a blog post in 2010, which discussed lunar events unrelated to the green moon.
