For open minds
Isn’t it amazing that we still don’t know how the moon came to be? I’d always been told that the moon was blasted out of the Earth after the planet impacted with a large asteroid. It’s a relief to know that that’s not the only possible explanation.
In Pure Spirit
What’s your favourite story about the moon?
This weekend will see a “super” moon. A supermoon happens when the moon is full and in perigee. This means the moon is at it’s closest approach point to the Earth. The moon and Earth have elliptical orbits and so are different distances apart at different times of the year.
The moon may appear to be full from May the 4th through to May the 6th this year. When will the UK see the supermoon? The moment of the supermoon will be brief; starting at 03:34 GMT and finishing at 03:36 GMT on Sunday the 6th of May.
Some mainstream press has given out the incorrect time for the supermoon. The Daily Mail is suggesting it will occur at 3:35 pm on Saturday. Unless they know about cosmos shaking events – this will be wrong.
There was a supermoon in 2011 – which resulted in some amazing photographs and even a tide of World War II bombs washing onto a beach in Southampton.
At nearly the exact same time the Eta Aquarid meteor shower should be hitting the peak. However, there’s the concern that the extra brightness from the super moon may make the meteor shower, which is in a different part of the sky, harder to see.
NASA meteor expert Bill Cooke told Space.com that;
““Its light will wash out the fainter Eta Aquarid meteors,”
In Pure Spirit
Will you be doing anything for the supermoon this year? And if you had to pick only one to watch – would you watch the meteor shower or the super moon?
Picture credit: Phil Ostroff
If you look up at the moon tonight you will see the pale surface has many shadowy patches. These are caused by craters on the surface casting shadows. The light comes from the sun just as it does here on Earth.
NASA have released a video called “Evolution of the Moon” which shows the history of the moon. This is a violent history as the moon has been struck time and time again by meteorites – some of which have been large.
In Pure Spirit
What did you make of the video? Was is strangely beautiful despite all the powerful impacts?
In the Northern Hemisphere tonight there will be a Harvest Moon. This is the full moon that happens to be closest to the autumn equinox and is special as the time difference between moonrise and successive evenings is shorter than usual.
The Harvest Moon tends to be large and more colourful than other moons of the year. This is because of the tilt of the earth and reflections from the atmosphere.
The Harvest Moon gets its name from the extra light it gives farmers – which mean in times before electricity that they had even longer to harvest their crops. The Harvest Moon, however, has other names. It’s known often as the Wine Moon as it is through this is when grapes are plump and ready for collecting. It’s called the Singing Moon as the festivals held to mark it would involve signing – it is the last full moon before Halloween. The moon has been called the Elk Call Moon too. The native American tribes may call a Harvest Moon that rises in September the Full Corn Moon and some European people may refer to it as the Gypsy Moon. The Chinese call the moon the Chrysanthemum Moon because of the illusion of the colour change.
The Celts would use the Harvest Moon to mark the time before Samhain and considered it a blessing. It would be a time of crop collection but also of large parties; signing, dancing and drinking.
The Norse noted that the Harvest Moon was often the first full moon after the first frost of the winter seasons. They considered it to be the most powerful moon of the year and associated with the trickster god Loki.
In Pure Spirit
Will you be watching the Harvest Moon tonight? What does it mean to you?
NASA has published this stunning photograph taken from the Planet of the Goats. The Planet of the Goats isn’t some sci-fi b-movie but an area in the Greek island of Ikaria that has rough terrain and covered in strange looking boulders.
As the storm approached photographers worried that the clouds would cover and ruin the total lunar eclipse that was expected to produce a rare blood moon. Instead they got this fantastic shot.
In Pure Spirit
Have you ever seen anything like this yourself? What are your thoughts?
There will be a total lunar eclipse tonight. The eclipse – which is expected to produce a blood moon – starts at about 6.24pm BST or 11:20am PDT – will be one of the longest since 2000. It’s expected to last for 100 minutes.
There’s more than one catch. There might be clouds. The event starts before moonrise for most of Europe. In other parts of the world it will not be visible at all.
However, an unlikely partnership has stepped forward that will let you witness the total lunar eclipse, blood moon and all, from anywhere in the world. Google has partnered with the brains behind the Slooh Space camera. This means you can watch the Google’s blood moon from a live stream on YouTube, from Google Earth (if you’re happy to download and apply this kml file) and even from your Android phone if you install the Sloosh Space Camera app.
This video shows what a blood moon looks like and how it’s formed. It’s a real incentive to try and watch one form in real time.
In Pure Spirit
Are you doing anything to mark the blood moon and total lunar eclipse? What does a total lunar eclipse mean to you?
Since the Super moon Calshot beach in Southampton has been a risky place to visit. The first wave of mortars were washed up on Tuesday. Police and costguard set up a 1,000m exlusion zone and the bombs where destroyed.
It is thought that the bombs have been exposed and dislodged by the abnormal tides caused by the proximity of the moon during the “super moon”.
Since then nearly 100 of the 20in mortars have been washed up and exposed on the beach which was once popular with for its dinghy-sailing lessons for adults and children, its canoeing classes and its proximity to the Calshot Activities Centre.
On Friday a team from the Navy wired the bombs up in groups of ten and detonated them during high tide.
The Navy fears that even more of the British built bombs will be surfaced. Lt Commander Nekrews shared a warning with the public via the press;
“We would tell all members of the public to definitely not handle them and to call police. They are always a danger.
“They were in an unstable state because of the amount of corrosion they have suffered over the years.”
In Pure Spirit
Do you live near Calshot? What has this week been like? Imagine it’s been an odd one!
Do you think this shows that we’re all too often unaware of the damage to the enviorment we’re actually doing? It takes an event like the Supermoon to reveal a little bit more of nature than normal for us to release that we’ve messed up and left our mark where it should not have been?
Via BBC and Daily Mail.
It’s the night of 19th of March 2011 – the Super Moon – and a paranormal researcher is in his freezing back garden with a video camera. He’s there to capture some footage of the moon. Instead, he captures three strange lights.
It was about 11pm and freezing cold but it was so light outside and really quite beautiful, looking across the fields and listening to the night wildlife. It was a clear night and there was no wind at all. The video shows the moon filmed through trees. I had my back to the fields at this point, then when I turned to look out over the fields right in front of me was three huge red lights moving across the sky in total silence. I was filming in infa-red at the time and this was when the lights were at their brightest. I switched to normal mode and the lights began to vanish one by one in a clear, cloudless sky.
The researcher, known only as MoonShadowCove at this point, goes on to say that the video fails to do justice to the intensity of the lights. An aircraft appears at the end of the video and this is a handy contrast because it helps rule out that these three lights were other planes.
But could they not just be Chinese lanterns? That would explain the way the original glow, the hovering and then the gentle fade to black.
I had a nose around the web and can’t find another “MoonShadowCove” used as an alias. There’s no Twitter account, for example, but he seems to be responding to messages on YouTube. In his own words;
I am a paranormal researcher, ghosts, big cat sightings, ufos, etc, so this for me was just fantastic.
In Pure Spirit
What do you think? Just Chinese lanterns or are these lights something that requires a harder look and more discussion?
The Super Moon on the 19th of March, when the Moon was the closest it has been to the Earth for 19 years, is likely to have caused a series of nautical accidents off the coast of the United Kingdom.
The moon effects tides and in the Solent, between the Isle of Wight and the Hampshire coast sandbanks that are normally covered by the sea where uncovered and became a danger to shipping. The Daily Mail reports that coastguards at the Isle of Wight had to deal with five ships in distress.
The stranded ships included a 25 foot yacht and a 2,900 tonne cargo ship. A coastguard told the newspaper;
We checked them all and there were no injuries, just some surprise at being caught out like this. Blame it on the Moon.
This photograph by Peter Pearson shows The Needles on the Isle of Wight.
In Pure Spirit
Did you experience anything odd during the Super Moon? Let us know in the comment section below.
Saturday, March the 19th, was a “Super Moon” was the sateilite got as close to Earth as it will at any time during 2011. The moon reached a distance as short as a mere 221, 565 miles from the planet.
The term “supermoon” dates back to 1979 when the astrologer Richard Nolle defined it as;
…a new or full moon which occurs with the Moon at or near (within 90% of) its closest approach to Earth in a given orbit (perigee). In short, Earth, Moon and Sun are all in a line, with Moon in its nearest approach to Earth.
Around the world some fantastic photographs where taken. Here’s a short selection!
In Pure Spirit
Which is your favourite? If you know of a better one then why not link to it in the comment section below?
