Biggest Full Moon of the Year
Posted by JAC on 1/28/2010, 5:51 am


This Friday night, if you think the Moon looks unusually big, you're right.

It's the biggest full Moon of 2010. Astronomers call it a "perigee Moon," some 14% wider and 30% brighter than lesser full Moons of the year.

Johannes Kepler explained the phenomenon 400 years ago.

The Moon's orbit around Earth is not a circle; it is an ellipse, with one side 50,000 km closer to Earth than the other.

Astronomers call the point of closest approach "perigee," and that is where the Moon will be Friday night.






Look around sunset when the Moon is near the eastern horizon.

At that time, illusion mixes with reality to produce a truly stunning view.

For reasons not fully understood by psychologists, low-hanging Moons look unnaturally large when they beam through foreground objects such as buildings and trees.

Why not let the "Moon illusion" amplify a full Moon that's extra-big to begin with?

The swollen orb rising in the east may seem close enough to touch.

And what's that bright orange star right beside the Moon?

IT'S MARS!

In a coincidence of celestial proportions, the Moon and Mars are having close encounters with Earth at the same time.

http://science.nasa.gov/headlines/y2010/26jan_mars.htm

Moreover, the two will spend Friday night gliding across the sky side-by-side.

It's a must-see event.





On Jan. 27th, Tamas Ladanyi of Tes, Hungary, caught this view of the Red Planet, pre-conjunction:








"I used a Canon 500D (ISO 1600, 6 sec) to photograph the winter landscape on the plateau of Tes with its famous windmills in bright moonlight," says Ladanyi.

"Mars shone beautifully above it all."

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Biggest Full Moon of the Year - JAC, 1/28/2010, 5:51 am
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