Super-Moon: Closest Orbit In 18 Years

It has been, my Dear Readers, a touch too long since I’ve given you some good, ol’ fashioned astronomy news. And it’s practical stuff, too…

The moon will not be dangerous, but they way it is peaking over those hills, it may be a little creepy
the night of the 18th…

On March 18th, the moon will make its closest approach to earth in eighteen years, coming to the close orbiting distance of 356,777 kilometers from earth’s surface. It may not appear all that much brighter or larger to the naked eye (and most of our eyes are just that) but through a telescope the moon will appear to be seven percent larger than on a normal evening. Scientists and nerdy amateur astronomers refer to this event as the rare “supermoon” phenomenon which only occurs a handful of times a century.

The close proximity of the moon will have some massive and potentially dangerous impacts on the tides. Experts warn that tidal changes will be much faster and severe, and expect that tidal flooding could be a problem in some areas. Fisherman and port workers in the early morning are especially at risk.

Earths Are One-In-Four…

As a planet with liquid water in abundance, just the right temperatures and a moving, fluctuating internal structure of rock, earth is pretty darn lucky. But it is our placement in relation to the sun that makes life possible. We had always assumed we were a rare occurrence, lucky beyond the odds of the universe. But now, we’ve found that we are not so special after all. Scientists now believe we are but a statistical minority, not an impossible rarity. Of the sun-like stars we know of, they claim, roughly 23 in 100 have planets in the same area and of the same basic dimensions of earth. Masses ranging from one-half to two times the size of earth are relatively common, present near roughly one in four stars systems similar to the sun. Much of this research is the result of extensive study of stars 166 G and K, just 80 light years away and very similar to our own sun in most respects. They found that there is almost a sort of formula, with planets sized similar to those found in our own system at relatively the same locations. For example, there is a planet roughly the size of Jupiter within a few thousand miles of where it is located in our own solar system.

Scientists found 156,000 stars that fit this formula, and the Keck telescope being used for the project will be able to detect roughly 120-260 possible planets in the next two months. What does this matter? We are not the mathematical anomaly we always imagined ourselves. There are planets with the same opportunities for life that we have had over the last 4.2 billion years, some of which have existed for a similar period of time. Is there life out there? Could we find it in the next 100 years? Or 200? Or ever. We don’t know everything. We know almost nothing. The universe, my friends, is the greatest mystery.

Amateur Astronomer Picture

Rob Bullen, an amateur astronomer in England took this shot of the space shuttled nearing the International Space Station on its resupply mission which began last week. The shuttle is carrying supplies, new instruments and a human-like robot designed to do day-to-day tasks aboard the ISS. Bullen took the shot with a nine inch telescope in his backyard on a somewhat cloudy evening Monday night. This is the second to last mission from the shuttle department of NASA, which we shut down after its last launch which is currently slated for April. To note, the shuttle and station are orbiting the earth at thousands of miles per hour and manipulating the docking instruments on a scale of inches or centimeters. That is skillfully done, we can assume.

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