Are you ready for the Supermoon?
Its an interesting idea, a super close moon, and and a high astrological portent…
The term comes from Richard Nolle (aka Astropro – Certified Professional Astrologer) who coined it, according to his website, in 1981. Of the event, besides a myriad of planetary calamities of floods, fires, and earthquakes, Nolle says of the SuperMoons that they have a noteworthiness “for their close association with extreme tidal forces working in what astrologers of old used to call the sublunary world: the atmosphere, crust and oceans [and earth].”
Mark Paquette on the Accu Weather blog, states Nolle’s predictions to the celestial going on with the forcast which “will bring strong earthquakes and storms and/or unusual climate patterns.”
Who knows, sounds like their trying to pin the Japan quake on the phenominon.
Paquette points out what science believes are the benchmarks of the lunar rising saying
“there are scientific laws that say the moon affects the Earth (i.e. tides). There are also less proven theories that propose that the moon affects the Earth in other ways (i.e. abnormal behavior during a full moon [lunacy])
NASA scientist Jim Garvin had this to say of the Supermoon:
“‘Supermoon’ is a situation when the moon is slightly closer to Earth in its orbit than on average, and this effect is most noticeable when it occurs at the same time as a full moon, So, the moon may seem bigger although the difference in its distance from Earth is only a few percent at such times.”
“It is called a supermoon because this is a very noticeable alignment that at first glance would seem to have an effect,” Garvin explained. “The ‘super’ in supermoon is really just the appearance of being closer, but unless we were measuring the Earth-Moon distance by laser rangefinders (as we do to track the LRO [Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter] spacecraft in low lunar orbit and to watch the Earth-Moon distance over years), there is really no difference.”
Not so much a link to the Japanese quake Garvin says:
“The Earth has stored a tremendous amount of internal energy within its thin outer shell or crust, and the small differences in the tidal forces exerted by the moon (and sun) are not enough to fundamentally overcome the much larger forces within the planet due to convection (and other aspects of the internal energy balance that drives plate tectonics),”
Either way stock up on provisions just in case and break out the binoculars Saturday evening and enjoy the super moon.
