North Pole Sunset

Netlore Archive: Emailed image purportedly snapped at the North Pole in which the crescent moon appears to be many times larger than the setting sun

Description: Emailed image
Circulating since: Feb 2006
Status: Computer-generated

Email example contributed by "Smiles," 11 February 2006:

Subject: Amazing Photo A scene you will probably never get to see in person. This is the sunset at the North Pole with the moon at its closest point. An amazing photo and not one easily duplicated. Image credit: Unatrributed, circulating via email

Comments: To paraphrase the caption above, this is very definitely a scene you will never get to see in person - not on planet earth, anyway - because it's physically impossible for the moon to appear so much larger than the sun when they are seen together with the naked eye. Why? Because, given their relative distances from the earth, the moon and the sun subtend the same angle in the sky, which is a fancy astrophysical way of saying that from our earthly vantage point they should always appear to be of equal size.

Granted, there is a famous optical illusion by virtue of which either heavenly body may seem somewhat larger than usual when it appears close to the horizon, but that is obviously not the explanation for the disparity seen here. We can only conclude that this is a computer-generated image or photo-realistic painting of an imaginary landscape, not an actual photograph.

The folks at Snopes.com have traced its likely origin to a German artist named Inga Nielsen, who apparently created it using Terragen, a program for generating background scenery for games, etc.

Sources and further reading:

The Moon Illusion
By physicist Donald Simanek

Why Does the Moon Appear Bigger Near the Horizon?
The Straight Dope, 25 January 1985

How Do We Measure the Size of the Moon and Sun?
Curious About Astronomy (Cornell University)

Understanding Angular Size
StudyWorks! Online

Sunset at the North Pole
Urban Legends Reference Pages, 28 March 2006

Last updated: 04/04/06

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