Tonight's Full Moon 14% larger, 30% brighter than usual

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AspieCard
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12 Dec 2008, 9:17 pm

http://news.yahoo.com/s/space/20081211/ ... ridaynight

sartresue
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12 Dec 2008, 10:33 pm

By the bright light of the moon topic

That is the mooniest moon I have seen in 15 years. It is like a giant searchlight in the sky!

Stunning.

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12 Dec 2008, 10:34 pm

Incidentally, the drag on the earth required to keep the moon's orbit moving out at 4 centimeters per year, is about 3 terawatts.

The moon-earth attraction force is about 2x10^20 Newtons. E = T + U, and for circular orbits U = -2xT, so dE=0.5xdU, where U is the gravitational potential, set equal to zero for separation at infinity. The energy fed into the moon's orbit is thus (0.5x0.04metersx2x10^20Newtons)/31557600seconds per year = 127 Gigawatts. However, this is the work fed into the orbit, and the earth spins at ~27x the moon orbit, so the energy dissipated on and in the earth is 26x127 GW = 3.3 TW.

Tidal current generators, channel resonance dams and the like might at best capture ~1% of this (total guess) which would be 30 GW, far too small to meet worldwide energy needs.

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Dokken
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12 Dec 2008, 11:16 pm

I don't understand how the moon magically grew in size... Isn't it always the same size?

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ForsakenEagle
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13 Dec 2008, 12:10 am

Aw, we have full cloud coverage here... in Arizona.

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13 Dec 2008, 1:06 am

I watched the moon rise last night...it was amazing! Clouds moved in tonight though

Eggman
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13 Dec 2008, 1:32 am

If only moon were cookie

familiar_stranger
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13 Dec 2008, 7:28 am

Dokken wrote:

I don't understand how the moon magically grew in size... Isn't it always the same size?

the moon only appears bigger due to there being less distance between it and us, it doesn't change size.

over the last week i've thought that the moon was getting brighter and clearer every night, and even stranger it also seemed to go through the lunar cycles over a week rather than a month

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poopylungstuffing
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13 Dec 2008, 8:35 am

It messed up my menstrual cycle.

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riverotter
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13 Dec 2008, 9:00 am

familiar_stranger wrote:

over the last week i've thought that the moon was getting brighter and clearer every night, and even stranger it also seemed to go through the lunar cycles over a week rather than a month

I think that has something to do with the ecliptic (the imaginary line the sun, moon, etc travel along in the sky) and it being so close to the winter solstice.

familiar_stranger
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13 Dec 2008, 2:34 pm

i can't see anything tonight, not the moon, not the stars, not a thing!

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HaliaTotheres
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13 Dec 2008, 9:46 pm

I'm blllliiiiind @_@ sdlfjasd;fas;ld

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14 Dec 2008, 5:21 pm

Ahhhwoooooohhh!! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !! !!

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lionesss
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14 Dec 2008, 5:45 pm

Yeah definitely is, gotta love the energies

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15 Dec 2008, 4:59 am

it was cloudy can peeps post pictures plz

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