AP : Christmas lights outline a nearly full moon in Victoria, Texas. This photo was taken Saturday.
Three nights before Christmas, clear skies around the world will shine with a light not seen in 133 years.
The occasion is the full moon happening Wednesday on the winter solstice just as the moon is tugged closest to both Earth and sun. The re-sult will be a moon that looks bigger and brighter than usual — not quite a miracle, but nonetheless a rare heavenly event.
“You should be able to read by the light of the moon if it isn’t cloudy,” said Bob Strom, a scientist at the Lunar and Planetary Institute in Tucson, Ariz. “So you’ll love it.”
But that’s not all skywatch-ers can expect, according to Glen Erickson, professor emeritus of physics and ad-viser to the Astronomy Club at the University of California, Davis.
Several things are coincid-ing to make it special, con-firmed Richard Marasso, chairman of the astronomy department at Sierra College, and Homer Ibser, professor emeritus of astronomy at Cali-fornia State University, Sacra-mento.
Here’s the lowdown on lu-nar lore:
The moon reaches its largest, brightest point every 29.5 days, but this month’s peak happens to fall on the winter solstice — the longest night of the year in the north-ern hemisphere. Winter sol-stice full moons happen once every 19 years by Erickson’s reckoning.
On the same day, the moon swings closest to the Earth in its slightly elliptical orbit. This point, called peri-gee, happens every 27 to 28 days, and therefore does not always coincide with the full moon. The frequency of the full moon coming on the same day as solstice and perigee is once every 133 years, Erick-son figured.
The Earth, also moving in an elliptical orbit, is nearing its closest approach to the sun, known as perihelion. In the northern hemisphere, the Earth is closest to the sun in the winter, farthest in the summer. It is the tilt of the Earth toward and away from the sun, not proximity, that governs the seasons. Because the Earth is close to the sun, and the moon is close to the Earth, that means the moon also is exceptionally close to the sun, making it appear more luminous than usual.
Ibser’s calculations show the moon will be 12 percent brighter than usual. Of course, the perception of brightness depends on local conditions. Will it be cloudy or clear? The sky dark or hazy with city lights?
“This is not going to be a real stunner where you have to wear sunglasses. You might look at it and say, this is no big deal,” acknowledged Strom, the Lunar and Plane-tary Institute scientist. “But it is.”
What with the approaching new year/new century/new millennium, chances are that many people will find signifi-cance in a special full moon coming now.
Terrie Brill, an astrologer, certainly does. “This is a very powerful time. It’s almost as though we’re making choices right now to have the planet go on, to have the planet in an important place where we’re protecting it. There is going to be chaos,” she predicted. “Everything will be magnified and taken out of context.”
Others see happy opportu-nity in the conjunction of sun, Earth and moon.
“If you read witchcraft books, (they say) the best time to do any kind of witch-craft for money or love or health is on a full moon,” said Cindy Rayos, owner of Psychic Believers & Mystic Shop in Sacramento. A very luminous full moon presumably would bring even greater powers. “A lot of people’s wishes would be coming true,” she said.
Rayos said many of her customers plan to celebrate the full moon, building altars and burning candles by moon-light.
As for herself, Rayos said, “I’m not going to be perform-ing any magic. But definitely, definitely, I’ll be outside, me and my children.”
Scripps Howard News Service
Published Tuesday, Dec. 21, 1999
