Re: Fwd: A lunar once in a Lifetime

[Guest guest]

My god-daughter sent me this timely adjunct to Rainbo's letter of this

morning...

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A Once in a Lifetime Occurrence in December

This year will be the first full moon to occur on the winter solstice,

Dec. 22, commonly called the first day of winter. Since a full moon

on the winter solstice occurred in conjunction with a lunar perigee

(point in the moon's orbit that is closest to Earth) The moon will

appear about 14% larger than it does at apogee (the point in it's

elliptical orbit that is farthest from the Earth) since the Earth is

also several million miles closer to the sun at this time of the year

than in the summer, sunlight striking the moon is about 7% stronger

making it brighter. Also, this will be the closest perigee of the Moon

of the year since the moon's orbit is constantly deforming. If the

weather is clear and there is a snow cover where you live, it is

believed that even car headlights will be superfluous.

On December 21 1866, the Lakota Sioux took advantage of this

combination of occurrences and staged a devastating retaliatory ambush

on soldiers in the Wyoming Territory.

In laymen's terms it will be a super bright full moon, much more than

the usual AND it hasn't happened this way for 133 years! Our ancestors

133 years ago saw this. Our descendants 100 or so years from now will

see this again.

Judy

Judith M. Daviau

English Department

Colby College

5261 Mayflower Hill

Waterville ME 04901-8852

(FAX)

jmdaviau@...