Legions of Lunatics

Tonight is a not a normal night – it is not just exciting because it is a Saturday night and mystical because it is full moon. It is special because tonight is Supermoon.

On average, the distance between the Earth and the moon is 385 000 km, but tonight the moon will be “merely” 356 577 km away from the Earth – the closest in 18 years (this is because the moon’s elliptic around the Earth is not circular). Tonight, the moon will appear up to 14 per cent bigger and 30 per cent brighter than normal!


You may wonder where my new found interest in the sun and moon suddenly comes from – there are two reasons:

I recently started an “Introduction to Astronomy” course and have since then turned into a proper geek: I spend hours reading up on star constellations, eclipses, the birth and death of stars and the relationship between gravity and heat and am no longer eating my fruit but using it to understand the movements of the solar system.

The other reason, slightly less obvious, is the disaster in Japan. One TV reporter mentioned that the severity of the earthquake was due to (or magnified by) the fact that the moon was so close to the Earth.
I didn’t immediately understand why this would be, so being the new-born science geek I am, I did some research: The moon is the fifth largest satellite in our solar system and is exceptionally large relative to the Earth. It’s gravitational force does not only influence the flow of ocean tides, but may even affect natural disasters. When the tide is low, there is less water pressure on the seafloor making it easier for the ground to move. Researchers found that earthquake activity is 10 per cent higher at low tide than at any other time of the day.

There have been speculations that the moon’s force is further magnified at Supermoon creating perfect conditions for natural disasters, especially earthquakes. But scientists have not confirmed these theories: they have neither found a correlation between earthquakes and full moon nor evidence to support the theory that the moon’s force during Supermoon is stronger and increases the probability of natural disasters. Instead, researchers argue that the Earth has a lot of energy that builds up and gets released whenever it gets too much – independent of full or Supermoons.

So tonight, you can rest assured - science will watch over you and protect you from moon-related earthquakes.

But rather than sleep - stay awake, join the legion of lunatics and enjoy the moon at its biggest, brightest and best!



PS: For all of you who were too tired to stay awake, too busy dancing to look at the sky or prevented from seeing the phenomenon because of a blanket of clouds (like me), here are a few photos of the Supermoon…




Btw, the moon appears red in some pictures because light is scattered by the atmosphere. When the moon is close to the horizon, the moonlight has to pass through more cloud particles, dust and pollution than when the moon is overhead. On its way through the atmosphere, the lower wavelengths of visible moonlight – purple, blue and green – are scattered away and only the higher wavelengths - yellow, orange and red – can be seen. When there is a lot of pollution in the air, the moon can even appear orange or red when it is directly overhead.