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Another snippet from the local evening news. The weatherman said that tonight there would be the biggest full moon of the year. And! The moon is closer than ever...221,600 miles away. I can almost touch it. Biggest Full Moon of the Year | 12.09.2008 | ||
Above: In 2004, Greek amateur astronomer Anthony Ayiomamitis photographed The best time to look is when the Moon is near the horizon. That is when illusion mixes with reality to produce a truly stunning view. For reasons not fully understood by astronomers or psychologists, low-hanging Moons look unnaturally large when they beam through trees, buildings and other foreground objects. On Friday, why not let the "Moon illusion" amplify a full Moon that's extra-big to begin with? The swollen orb rising in the east at sunset may seem so nearby, you can almost reach out and touch it. But you still won't be able to see Armstrong's footprint. Not even Hubble can do that. The Moon is 384,400 km away (on average). At that distance, the smallest things Hubble can distinguish are about 60 meters wide. The biggest pieces of left-behind Apollo equipment are only about 9 meters across and smaller than a single pixel in a Hubble image. What you will see is the world around you. This is both the brightest and (in the northern hemisphere) the highest-riding full Moon of the year. If you go outside around midnight it will be close to overhead and act like a cosmic floodlamp making the landscape absolutely brilliant, especially if there's snow. Full moons are always high during winter and, indeed, the solstice is right around the corner on Dec. 21st. A fun experiment: Take a friend outside on Friday evening and ask if they notice anything unusual. Is the Moon big and bright enough to impress the unwary? Explain perigee later.... Author: Dr. | |||
