Friday, May 04, 2012

Saturday's "Super Moon" Not Likely to Destroy Earth

I had been hinting that this Saturday / Sunday  - the 5th - 6th would be highlighted with full moon at perigee known recently as a super Moon.  This is when the moon is the closest and in "line" with the Sun, what forces that are applied to the Earth's surface.  Our regular contributor Xnewsman sent in this article from Space.com.

Setting aside the doomsayers for the moment, lets look at what makes this a singular event in and of itself.  The Moon's orbit is not quite circular, there for the moon will reach its perigee distance (closest approach ) of 221,802 miles   at 11:34 p.m. eastern time and enter alignment with the sun exactly 1 minute later, making for an even larger and brighter than the  super moon of March 19, 2011.

With the last event, all sorts of  chaos was predicted.  From earthquakes to  volcanic eruptions,  but other than slightly higher tides, nothing catastrophic is predicted.  

image credit NOAO/AURA/NSF 

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