Sunday 20 March 2011

The supermoon is doing weird things to us all

It’s so bright!!!!! Ahhhhh! There are a lot of weird things being suggested about the supermoon. Crazy tides (well slightly bigger tides, yes that’s true). But the spate of disasters? No. Nor is it anything to do with the end of the world in 2012. It is just the moon… a little bit closer to Earth than usual… and at full moon… Still, there’s always fear of the unknown…. Aaaah! Panic! Technicially it’s the brightest moon for years, but by the tiniest amount. The same went for Mars in 2003. The word for the closest point on an orbit around Earth is perigee, and the furthest, apogee (geo-). This goes for the sun: perihelion and aphelion. Also, any lunar probes would have an periselene & aposelene. A bit like an apex. In these pics the moon is at perigee and 356 577 km away. Canon350D ISO400 135mm f/2.8 10”, plus f/16 1/640” for detail.

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