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Don't Start Panicking: SuperMoon On Its Way
By
Ben Yakas
Published Mar 4, 2011
Modified Mar 4, 2011
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By
Ben Yakas
Published Mar 4, 2011
Modified Mar 4, 2011
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In a little over two weeks, on March 19, the moon will be at its closest point to Earth in 18 years, an event that is known as a “lunar perigee”—one astrologer, Richard Nolle, has dubbed such events the "SuperMoon," which means a new or full moon at 90 percent or greater of its closest perigee to Earth. And some believe this natural wonder could spell the start of a moonageddon, with extreme weather, earthquakes and floods. Was this what John Fogerty has been trying to warn us about all these years?
Some believe that a bad moon is indeed on the rise: the New England hurricane of 1938 and the Hunter Valley floods of 1955 both happened during lunar perigees. And Cyclone Tracy in 1974 and Hurricance Katrina in 2005 also coincided, or came very close to coinciding, with SuperMoons. Coupled with dead birds falling from the sky, rising sea levels, and mysterious green goo, could this be the latest sign of the apocalypse?
Eh, scientists tell news.com.au probably not: "There will be no earthquakes or volcanoes unless they are to happen anyway...[The Earth will experience] just a lower than usual low tide and a higher than usual high tide around the time of the event, but nothing to get excited about,” said Pete Wheeler of the International Centre for Radio Astronomy. Astronomer and lecturer David Reneke adds that human paranoia is more worrisome than a SuperMoon: "If you try hard enough you can chronologically associate almost any natural disaster/event to anything in the night sky...comet, planet, sun. Remember in the past, planetary alignments were going to pull the sun apart. It didn't. Astrologers draw a very long bow most times. Normal king tides are about all I would expect out of this SuperMoon prediction.”
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Ben Yakas
Ben Yakas is a former Gothamist reporter.
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