Many remarkable things are happening in space at once.
But Monday’s much-vaunted “super blue moon” just isn’t one in every of them – a minimum of not based on astronomers.
“I think this is completely made up,” says Andrew Fraknoi, who has taught astronomy and physics at Bay Area colleges and universities for 30 years.
The moon is full. But its technical peak shall be 11:26 a.m. Monday morning in Californiasays NASA. We won't see it – it’ll be on the opposite side of the Earth. We shall be bathed in sunshine. Our moonrise is just at 20:19
It's a “supermoon,” meaning it's at perigee, the closest point in its orbit to Earth. Compared to a median full moon, Monday's moon shall be about 7 percent larger and 15 percent brighter. But that won't be enough to be noticeable to the casual observer.
“If you're really into astronomy, you'll notice. But the word 'super' used to be reserved for things that were significant,” Fraknoi said. “That's a bit of an exaggeration.”
And it's not “blue.” Its color hasn't modified. It's gray and white, identical to it all the time was. The moon only seems to alter color when a volcanic eruption, wildfires, or pollution sends tons of particles into the air.
The term “blue moon” is generally defined because the second full moon of the month. Since the moon's orbit across the Earth takes 27 days and the calendar month is 30 to 31 days long, this does occur sometimes. In fact, it happened last 12 months: the second full moon of the calendar month reached its full lunar phase at its closest point to Earth last August.
That's not the case now. We only have 19 days within the month – so Monday's full moon is our first.
However, there’s one other definition: a “seasonal blue moon,” wherein a calendar season includes 4 full moons as a substitute of the standard three.
Monday's blue moon is the third of 4 full moons this summer. Well, the following seasonal blue moon is anticipated in 2027. (Why is the third full moon and never the fourth called the additional moon? It's complicated and never particularly interesting.)
In the meantime, there's news concerning the Moon: Thanks to a Chinese probe, the primary samples ever taken from its far side have just been brought back to Earth. The 4 kilos of fresh rock that arrived in June could provide latest insights into our closest neighbor.
Beyond the moon, geophysicists have found remarkable evidence of a giant underground reservoir of liquid water on Mars. It lies too deep to be of much use to anyone hoping to tap into it to power a future Mars colony. But data from NASA's Insight lander, reported this week within the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences by Michael Manga of UC Berkeley and others, could help answer questions on the planet's geologic history — and point to a promising place to look for all times.
Even further away, NASA's James Webb Space Telescope just discovered numerous carbon-containing molecules dancing around a really young and low-mass star. Until now, little was known concerning the atmospheric chemistry of worlds to date away.
Of course, a full moon – even when it just isn’t super shiny or blue – is all the time beautiful to take a look at.
“But there are so many really exciting things happening in astronomy,” Fraknoi said. “These are things I never thought I would experience in my career.”
“It was an incredible year,” he said.
image credit : www.mercurynews.com