--------- #1450 Full Moon on Delaney’s and Doug’s birthdays.
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- Delaney’s birthday is April 7 and there is a Full Moon. One month later on Doug’s birthday, May 7, a spectacular event will occur in astronomy. This Full Moon will be the largest and the closest and will not happen again until 2014.
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- On May 7 the Moon will be only 221,802 miles away. As the Full Moon leaves Delaney’s birthday and approaches Doug’s birthday, May 1st it will pass just south of Mars. On May 4th it passes just south of Saturn. Be sure to put your binoculars on Saturn’s moon and our Moon to get the full effect. On May 9th you won’t see it but the Moon passes just south of Pluto. On May 7th we have the Full Moon, but, actually it is only a Half Moon.
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- Amazingly the back half of the Moon that we never get to see is totally different then the half that we do see. The Moon is in a synchronous orbit with the Earth. It rotates exactly once during each orbit of 27.55 days keeping the same face towards us all the time.
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- On the backside of the Moon virtually all the smooth dark “ seas” are absent. All the features seem to be created differently. (See Review #1291 to learn what ma have caused this. It involves a second moon that smashed into our Moon at a slow speed.) All the features on the back side have Russian names. They got there first so took the opportunity to name every thing they saw. I am not sure if these names are going to show up in American textbooks. We‘ll see.
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- Hidden in the shadows of features on the Moon is as much as 1 to 2 % water frost. This is an amazing and an unexpected discovery. When American astronauts got there they left 4 seismometers on the lunar surface. From these another surprise is that when struck by an meteorite or a discarded rocket stage the Moon rings like a bell. And, the ringing lasts for hours. This must mean that the Moon’s interior is far different than Earth’s.
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- The Moon is still cooling and shallow moonquakes are still occurring within 125 miles below the surface. The largest moonquake recorded was 5.9 on the Richter scale.
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- The Moon’s orbit is an oval path not a circle. It looks more like daisy peddles traced out in the sky, or an oval hula hoop that never returns to the same starting place in space. Also the Moon does not orbit the equator. Instead it follows the path of the Sun through the sky. Following the ecliptic the Moon spends 2 or 3 nights per month in each Zodiac Constellation. On April 7 it is in Virgo. On May 7 it is in Scorpio
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- The Full Moon is nearly a perfect circle. It is out of round by only 4 miles. The Full Moon appears very bright in the night sky, but, it is really 400,000 times dimmer than the Sun. The Moon reflects 12% of the sunlight. Amazing as it may seem this is enough for a Full Moon to raise the temperature on Earth by 0.04 degrees Fahrenheit from its reflected sunlight. Studies have determined that the nights of the Full Moon are cloudier than other nights. There may even be a small correlation between Full Moon’s and earthquakes. The Earth will flex 9 inches when the Moon is closest to the Earth and lined up with the Sun on the opposite side. That means that May 7th will see some extreme tides but hopefully no shaking, except the party music.
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- The pull of the Moon on Earth is slowing the Earth’s rotation down 0.001 seconds per 100 years. No need to reset your watch. The lost energy due to these tidal interactions is slowly spiraling the Moon’s orbit away from us. But, only 1.5 inches per year. ( See review #1243 to learn how the Moon was formed 4,500,000,000 years ago.)
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- So, I plan to have a few drinks and howl at the Moon on Doug’s birthday. Hope to have you’all join me, so people won’t think I am crazy as I ponder the Moon in celebration.
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707-536-3272, Friday, April 6, 2012
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