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Here Comes a Once-in-a-Lifetime Supermoon

posted by cmn32480 on Tuesday November 08 2016, @05:16AM   
from the was-that-a-horseman? dept.

Phoenix666 writes:

By mid-November, Chicago's World Series afterglow will have faded and the hotly contested presidential election will be done and dusted, but North Americans will have one more "once in a lifetime event" to look forward to: The biggest, most spectacular supermoon in decades.

On November 14, skywatchers will be rewarded with a lunar close-up, the result of a coincidence between the moon's elliptical orbit and the position of the Earth and Sun.

A "supermoon" is the colloquial term for when a full moon coincides with the moon's closest approach to Earth, known as perigee.

Supermoon, Black Moon, the Cubs winning the World Series...the signs are upon us. The end is nigh.

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Original Submission

• Nowhere near "once in a lifetime" either. Nowhere near "once in a lifetime" either. (Score: 2, Informative) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 08 2016, @06:15PM

  by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday November 08 2016, @06:15PM (#424159)

  Using this site: http://astropixels.com/ephemeris/moon/fullperigee2001.html [astropixels.com]
  It reveals the following:

  Perigee distance on:

  November 15, 2016: 356,523m
  November 25, 2034: 356,448m
  January 13, 2036: 356,531m (8 meters more distant)

  This is all very cool, but at these ranges it's a pretty minimal distinction. (The whole category of "supermoon" has a variance of 3% from closest this century at 356,429 to furthest at 367,980. Even closest supermoon this century to furthest possible perigee, 370400, is only 3.9%.) Whatever scale you want to take it, though, it ain't "once in a lifetime," unless you have an unusually short lifespan.

  And, for all the supermoons, the absolute minimum for the 21st century is in 2052 at 356,429m. I hope I'll still be around then, though I'll be very old.

  But in any event, there are 425 instances this century of moons whose distance at full is closer than 350,000 km (a "supermoon.") 125 of those are closer than this one in November.

  Again, cool. Reasonably rarish. Measurably brighter. But totally unique in a lifetime? Hell, no.

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• Re:Nowhere near "once in a lifetime" either. (Score: 2) by bob_super on Tuesday November 08 2016, @09:20PM

  by bob_super (1357) on Tuesday November 08 2016, @09:20PM (#424250)

  I was going to say "quit it with your boring logic, we finally have an apolitical topic" ... but oh well, maybe next time.

  Parent