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Sky gazers awe-struck seeing biggest, brightest full moon with Mars
by Jaspreet Virk - January 30, 2010 - comments
The full moon, which rose from the east, was 14 percent wider and 30 percent brighter compared to the other full moons of the year.
New York, January 30 -- It was indeed a good night for the sky gazers, as they witnessed two major astronomical events together last night.
On Friday, the brightest and the biggest moon had adorned the night sky.
This coincided with the phenomenon when the planet Mars was closest to the Earth. To the naked eye it was visible like an orange colored star next to moon.
Many sky gazers with clear skies were awe-struck seeing the biggest moon and Mars shining big and bright.
A viewer named Sherrae commented on EarthSky, “Well, the only thing I can say is looking in the sky over beautiful Los Angeles, California. The Moon is bright and Mars is blinging in the clear night skies.....simply PRICELESS.”
Another viewer named gremlin1 stated on The Huffington Post, “At 6:15 this morning I was stunned by how huge, clear and bright the moon appeared. It almost didn't seem real. Gorgeous, though.”
Understanding the phenomenon
The full moon, which rose from the east was 14 percent wider and 30 percent brighter compared to the other full moons of the year.
On an average, a moon is 238,855 miles away from Earth but last night it was only 221,577 miles away from our planet, thus the closet perigee of the moon for this year. Perigee is the point when the moon gets closest to Earth during it orbit around the planet.
It is only once or twice in a year that perigee coincides with a full moon, making the moon the biggest and the brightest.
In a remarkable coincidence, even Mars was in the opposite direction to the sun, thus making it closest to Earth.
Mars, which takes 687 days to complete its revolution around the sun, comes close to Earth once in every two years.
Full moon myths and facts
Historically, moon’s varied appearances were given folk names.
The full moon that occurs in January is called the Wolf Moon. The name dates back to hungry wolfs that used to howl in the cold night outside the villages of Native Americans. The tribe kept track of the seasons by giving name to each full moon.
Traditionally, full moon was associated with strange behavior among humans and animals. It was believed that full moon leads to temporal insomnia, insanity, and magical phenomenon like lycanthropy.
But psychologists state that the connection is nonexistent.
Full moon has an effect on the planet though. During this time, there are high tides in seas and oceans, therefore beaches are more polluted.
Since this time it was full moon at perigee, it resulted in higher ocean tides.