Although the term is quite catchy, many scientists feel the phrase causes overhype-not that the full Moon isn’t special, but there are so many other fascinating astronomical events that deserve attention. Of note, the name supermoon was coined by an astrologer, not an astronomer. Image adapted from: Marcoaliaslama CC-BY-SA 3.0 A full Moon on 20 December 2010, compared with the supermoon on 19 March 2011. It does, however, often receive a bit of extra media coverage (such as this article), so people perceive a difference. The change is so slight that you’re unlikely to even notice unless you were told. How much bigger and brighter is it? At most, it appears about 14 per cent bigger and up to 30 per cent brighter. Image adapted from: Minesweeper CC-BY-SA 3.0 What’s so super about a supermoon?Ī supermoon is brighter and an apparently larger full Moon due to it being near its closest point to the Earth in its orbit (the perigee). When it is on the same side as the Sun, no reflected light is visible (a new moon). When the Moon is on the opposite side to the Sun it appears full. As an aside, this also explains why you will only ever see a partial Moon rise during the day (as the Moon would need to be on the same side as the Sun). Anything in between these two extremes results in the waxing or waning Moon, with only a partial disc visible in the sky. This celestial arrangement is known as a ‘syzygy’ and results in sunlight reflecting from a full hemisphere of the Moon back to Earth, appearing as a full disc of light in the night’s sky.Ĭonversely, a new Moon occurs when the order is Sun, Moon and then Earth, resulting in the reflected light missing us completely. The Moon is full, but how?Ī full Moon happens when the Sun, Earth and Moon line up in that order. Nevertheless, we are generally in awe of the white disc in the night’s sky. These supposed effects have been either entirely disproved or are completely unsupported by evidence. Today, we know that the Moon does influence some things here on Earth (tides for instance), but many of the other connections, such as the myths above or planting crops based on a lunar cycle, do not stand up to scientific inquiry. This includes the full Moon inducing madness, young maidens having an increased fertility during a blue Moon, a red Moon being a sign of impending doom, or the supermoon leading to natural disasters. During our history, humans have often misattributed lunar events for why both the good and bad things happen around us.
0 Comments
Leave a Reply. |
AuthorWrite something about yourself. No need to be fancy, just an overview. ArchivesCategories |