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(meteorobs) Dec 22nd
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Date: Wed, 15 Dec 1999 11:16:16 -0600
From: Stephanie Hobrock <HobrockS@go-redbirds.com>
Subject: (meteorobs) What next?
I realize that there is a shower on Dec.22
<<
Stephanie,
I was curious what shower is to occur on the 22nd, particularly since I
recieved this from a friend today & thought the group would find it
assumingly of interest, so I pass it on.
Cindee
This is a short edited version of an article which appears in this month's
Discovery Magazine. This has not been released on line as yet.
Millennium Dance: The Sun, Moon, and Earth create a Y2K, Cosmic style
by Bob Berman.
A better time to celebrate a truly once in a thousand year event arrives some
nine days earlier than the official end of the millennium. This year's
December 22 winter solstice coincides with a full moon, a combination that
happens only every 3 decades or so...But that's not the only celestial oddity
for the day:
The moon also reaches perigee, its closest point to the Earth. So this
solstice, which brings together the year's lowest sun and longest night,
comes at the same time as the closest moon - and a full moon to boot. The
last time the full moon, lunar perigee, and winter solstice fell on the same
day was in 1866. But even then, the moon merely reached its closest approach
of the month.
On December 22, the moon will be at its nearest point of the year. It's the
kind of event that would have drove "primitive" cultures bonkers!! And
believe it or not, there's more...The day of Earth's maximal tilt (when the
axis is directed most fully away from the sun) will also combine with a very
CLOSE sun...which reaches its nearest
point to the earth, 12 days later.
The confluence of all these forces at "the very least" will brew up huge
proxige an tides, also called "closest of the close moon" tides. They will
extend a few, but crucial, inches farther then normal, ranging from reaching
the boardwalk highs, to lows that uncover rarely exposed marine life. If you
add a low pressure storm at sea scenario to this to this day, unusually
strong tides could go over the edge and even
earthquakes occur more often during strong tide effects.
The cosmic culprits responsible for all this drama, the moon and sun, occupy
opposite ends of the sky on December 21-22. A full moon will rise just as the
sun goes down in its leftmost position of the year along the horizon. This
exceptionally
plump moon will seem a full 14% wider then than it appeared at apogee, its
farthest point from the Earth.
Long ago and early on in the experience of using calendars, years end always
coincided with the winter solstice. That changed during the switch from the
Julian to the more accurate Gregorian calendar, beginning in the sixteenth
century. What seems to have been lost was a much more appropriate time, from
a celestial point of view, to celebrate the passing of 1,000 years, when on
December 22, the sun, moon, and Earth perform a truly, genuinely once in a
millennium dance.
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