Cosmic Rays from Mars May Harm Your Cell Phones - Hoax Analysis

Story:

Tonight 12:30 am to 3:30 am cosmic rays entering earth from mars. So switch off your mobile at night. Don’t keep your cell with you & put it away while you are sleeping. NASA informs BBC NEWS that the Cosmic Rays from Mars May Harm Your Cell Phones.

Other Versions

1. Hi all,

Tonight by 12.30 am cosmic rays from Mars enter into our atmosphere. You are requested to SWITCH OFF your mobile during that time .This is a request by NASA through BBC. Pls Forward it to all.

2. Tonight at 00: 30 to 03: 30 make sure to turn off the phone, cellular, tablet, etc … and put away from your body.
Singapore television announced the news. Please tell your family and friends. Tonight, 12:30 to 3:30 for our planet will be very high radiation. Cosmic rays will pass close to Earth. So please turn off your cell phone. Do not leave your device close to your body, it can cause you terrible damage. Check Google and NASA BBC News. Send this message to all the people who matter to you.
Forwarded as received.

3. NASA warns all mobile users to keep phones away while sleeping tonight between 12:30 AM to 3:30 am IST.
Mars moves close to Earth and may release high amount of radiation.

Analysis:

These messages, in various versions, claim to talk about a warning that NASA informed BBC saying Cosmic rays from Mars are entering Earth tonight and so we all need to switch off our mobile cell phones, or stay away from them. The message that requests to be forwarded and shared is not a fact!

How it Started

The claim in the message is not something new; it has been circulating through forwarded emails, text messages and social media posts like on Facebook since at least 2008, and keeps resurfacing many times.

Firstly, there are no credible reports to confirm the cosmic rays warning from Mars; neither NASA nor BBC news have ever reported such a thing.

Not Possible

Like pointed by this blogger, Mars is a planet that can just reflect sunlight; it’s not a star that can emit cosmic radiation. As reported by BBC News (BBC.com) in Feb. 2013, most of the cosmic rays raining down on Earth come from distant exploded stars. It is a fact that cosmic rays may cause damage on microelectronics and life in general, but Earth’s atmosphere and magnetic field act like a shield, making it capable of taking care of harmful radiation like that from Sun. The same thing holds true even if Mars could reflect cosmic rays; the effect would not be as significant as mentioned in the claim. However, the satellites that are not under earth’s protective atmosphere can be affected by cosmic rays, which in turn, can effect communication on cell phones.

To conclude, there is no evidence or scientific basis to say that cosmic rays from planet Mars can harm your cell phones, so you need not worry about these warnings. Sharing and spreading such dubious and unsubstantiated messages will not help anyone; instead, they can be counterproductive.