That big orb up in the sky tonight is a 'supermoon'
Source: Agencies |
May 5, 2012, Saturday
|
Print Edition
Print Edition
THE biggest and brightest full moon of the year arrives tonight as our celestial neighbor passes closer to Earth than usual.
But don't expect any "must have been a full moon" spike in crime or crazy behavior. That's just folklore.
Today's event is a "supermoon," the closest and therefore the biggest and brightest full moon of the year. The moon will come within about 357,000 kilometers of Earth.
That's about 24,600 kilometers closer than average.
That proximity will make the moon appear about 14 percent bigger than it would if the moon were at its farthest distance, said Geoff Chester of the US Naval Observatory. The difference in appearance is so small that "you'd be very hard-pressed to detect that with the unaided eye," he said.
The moon's distance from Earth varies because it follows an elliptical orbit rather than a circular one.
Like any full moon, the supermoon will look bigger when it's on or near the horizon rather than higher in the sky, thanks to an optical illusion, Chester said.
The supermoon will bring unusually high tides because of its closeness and its alignment with the sun and Earth, but the effect will be modest, Chester said.
But no matter how far away a full moon is, it's not going to make people commit crimes, get admitted to a psychiatric hospital or do anything else that popular belief suggests, a psychologist says.
Studies that have tried to document such connections have found "pretty much a big mound of nothing, as far as I can tell," said Scott Lilienfeld of Emory University.
Lilienfeld, author of "50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology," said the notion of full moons causing bizarre behavior ranks among the top 10 myths because "it's so widely held and it's held with such conviction."
Lilienfeld said a key reason could be the way people pay attention to things. If something unusual happens to occur during a full moon, people who believe the myth take note and remember, even telling other people because it confirms their ideas.
But when another full moon appears and nothing out of the ordinary occurs, "they're not very likely to remember" or point it out to others.
So in the end, he said, all they remember are the coincidences.
But don't expect any "must have been a full moon" spike in crime or crazy behavior. That's just folklore.
Today's event is a "supermoon," the closest and therefore the biggest and brightest full moon of the year. The moon will come within about 357,000 kilometers of Earth.
That's about 24,600 kilometers closer than average.
That proximity will make the moon appear about 14 percent bigger than it would if the moon were at its farthest distance, said Geoff Chester of the US Naval Observatory. The difference in appearance is so small that "you'd be very hard-pressed to detect that with the unaided eye," he said.
The moon's distance from Earth varies because it follows an elliptical orbit rather than a circular one.
Like any full moon, the supermoon will look bigger when it's on or near the horizon rather than higher in the sky, thanks to an optical illusion, Chester said.
The supermoon will bring unusually high tides because of its closeness and its alignment with the sun and Earth, but the effect will be modest, Chester said.
But no matter how far away a full moon is, it's not going to make people commit crimes, get admitted to a psychiatric hospital or do anything else that popular belief suggests, a psychologist says.
Studies that have tried to document such connections have found "pretty much a big mound of nothing, as far as I can tell," said Scott Lilienfeld of Emory University.
Lilienfeld, author of "50 Great Myths of Popular Psychology," said the notion of full moons causing bizarre behavior ranks among the top 10 myths because "it's so widely held and it's held with such conviction."
Lilienfeld said a key reason could be the way people pay attention to things. If something unusual happens to occur during a full moon, people who believe the myth take note and remember, even telling other people because it confirms their ideas.
But when another full moon appears and nothing out of the ordinary occurs, "they're not very likely to remember" or point it out to others.
So in the end, he said, all they remember are the coincidences.
- About Us
- |
- Terms of Use
- |
-
RSS - |
- Privacy Policy
- |
- Contact Us
- |
- Shanghai Call Center: 962288
- |
- Tip-off hotline: 52920043
- 沪ICP证：沪ICP备05050403号-1
- |
- 互联网新闻信息服务许可证：31120180004
- |
- 网络视听许可证：0909346
- |
- 广播电视节目制作许可证：沪字第354号
- |
- 增值电信业务经营许可证：沪B2-20120012
Copyright © 1999- Shanghai Daily. All rights reserved.Preferably viewed with Internet Explorer 8 or newer browsers.
