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Low-Hanging Full Moon.

By Miss Cellania in Everything Else on Jun 29, 2007 at 6:28 pm


450_full-moon-rise.jpg

This weekend’s full moon hangs lower in the sky than any other full moon of 2007, according to NASA, and it’s a good time to be fooled.

When low on the horizon, the Moon can appear to be larger than when it’s higher in the sky. It’s all an illusion, scientists say, and it does not involve any enlarging effects of the atmosphere. Rather, it’s all in your mind.

You can see this illusion Friday, Saturday, and Sunday evenings. Link


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COMMENT
  1. Alex
    Jun 29th, 2007 at 8:04 pm

    Moon hung low? There's a joke in there somewhere ...

  2. Edward
    Jun 30th, 2007 at 9:08 am

    I think the optical illusion is the other way around. With the moon high in the sky, there is nothing to compare with it, so we make it smaller. When it is on the horizon, we see just how large it is.

  3. bruce v. bracken
    Jul 2nd, 2007 at 1:26 am

    If it's all in our minds, how does it show up in the photo?

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