Sunday, January 07, 2007

P's Corner - Spaced Out Sundays

Have you ever noticed that the moon, when it's high up, sometimes looks bigger than normal? ET and I were wondering about that a little while ago, and then we just forgot about it. But last night, the issue came back when I surfed an astronomy site and saw a nice photo. We learned that the moon has a non-circular orbit and that it looks bigger sometimes because it's actually closer. Duh!

Then I found the following lunation cycle simulation video that shows very well the change in the moons apparent size. The yellow circle is there as a reference. Oh well, another one of our little mysteries dispelled!

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