Re: RAT Amazing stories and histories

[Agnes Wilcox <tnt@artsci.wustl.edu>]

Mary Ann --

How dare you clog up the RAT list with comments that are in no way
self-serving or intellectually masturbatory!

Agnes



On Sat, 18 Dec 1999, Mary Ann McGivern wrote:

> This is just amazing.
> 
> For the first time in the life of anyone around today, we'll see a full
> moon
> occur on the Winter solstice, Dec. 22nd, commonly called the first day
> of
> Winter.  Since a full moon on the Winter solstice occurs in
> conjunction
> with a lunar perigee (point in  the  moon's orbit that is closest to
> Earth),
> the moon will appear about 14% larger than it does at apogee (the point
> in
> its elliptical orbit that is farthest from the Earth). Since the Earth
> is
> also several million miles closer to the sun at this time of the year
> than
> in the summer, sunlight striking the moon is about 7% stronger making
> it
> brighter. Also, this will be the closest perigee of the Moon of the
> year
> since the moon's orbit is constantly deforming. If the weather is clear
> and
> there is a snow cover where you live, it is believed that even car
> headlights will be superfluous.
> On December 21st, 1866 the Lakota Sioux took advantage of this
> combination
> of occurrences and staged a devastating retaliatory ambush on soldiers
> in
> Wyoming Territory.
> In layman's terms: It will be a super bright full moon, much more than
> the
> usual AND it hasn't happened this way for 133 years!  Our ancestors 133
> years ago saw this.  Our descendants 100 or so years from now will see
> this
> again.
> 
> 
> 
> 
>