Sightings, Notes & Updates

Full Moon Megillah

12/21/99 - If you happen to live in the northern hemisphere, December 22nd is the winter solstice, the point at which the earth's axis is tilted furthest from the sun, making "Midwinter's Eve" the the longest night of the year. To the ancients, the December solstice symbolized the yearly consummation of a cyclical battle between light and darkness, giving rise to a considerable body of seasonal folklore from which many of our present-day Yule traditions evolved.

Well, the mythmaking didn't stop with our ancestors. As About.com's Geography Guide Matt Rosenberg reported last week, a relatively rare lunar event scheduled to occur simultaneously with the solstice this year has sparked Internet rumors that depart fancifully from the known facts.

The event is a full moon at perigee – meaning that the moon is full at the same moment its orbit brings it closest to the earth. This will result, according to the rumor, in a "super bright" full moon on the solstice.

"If the weather is clear and there is a snow cover where you live, it is believed that even car headlights will be superfluous," it claims.

Don't bet on it, answers Sky and Telescope magazine. The email contains a grain of truth, but some of its wilder statements have astronomers chuckling. According to the magazine: "This month's full moon won't look dramatically brighter than normal. Most people won't notice a thing, despite the email chain letter that implies we'll see something amazing."

Driving without your headlights is not recommended.

The rumor appears to have sprung from a brief article in this year's Old Farmer's Almanac, overly portentous even before it was spiced up for Internet consumption. This may indeed be a "once in a lifetime astronomical event" (as the email says), but don't expect to be any more awed than usual by what you see in the night sky.

"The real news here," Sky and Telescope editor Alan M. MacRobert reminds us, "is the power of the Internet to spread a piece of random confusion."

Further reading:

Text of the Email Rumor
With commentary by About.com's Geography Guide

The Astonishing Lunar Illumination of Dec. 22, 1999
Old Farmer's Almanac article

Brightest Moon in 133 Years?
Sky and Telescope article

Myth, Not Full Moon, Makes People Crazy
SF Examiner:  Can we expect more lunacy than usual on December 22nd?