It’s a howl

LUNAR LOOMINGS The Supermoon on November 14, 2016. Pic: miguel98alejo


Áine Ryan

IF there was ever a time to howl at the moon it was last night or even tonight (Tuesday). Well, that old man in the moon is winking more menacingly than he has since 1948. Unsurprisingly. since the supermoon illuminating our skies these nights appears to be 14 percent bigger and up to 30 percent brighter than the usual full moon.   
Time to dust the cobwebs off that old vinyl record of Pink Floyd’s ‘Dark Side of the Moon’, turn those decibels right up, and fast-forward to those most appropriate lyrics: “The lunatic is on the grass/ The lunatic is on the grass/ Remembering games and daisy chains and laughs/ Got to keep the loonies on the path/ The lunatic is in the hall/ The lunatics are in my hall/ …. And if there is no room upon the hill/ And if your head explodes with dark forbodeings too/ I’ll see you on the dark side of the moon.”
No dark side of the moon these nights as the satellite is closer to the earth than it has been for more than 68 years – a phenomenon that will not occur again until 2034.   
Experts say that the moon was closest to Ireland shortly after midnight this morning (12.31am) – a mere stone’s throw of of 218,614 miles from the emerald isle.
Interestingly, it is the earth’s only satellite and the fifth largest moon in the solar system, influencing the ebb and flow of our oceans’ tidal systems.
Whether the supermoon causes chaos in maternity wards this week with birth rates peaking is open to debate.

Did you know?
As his dying wish, some of the ashes of  Dr Eugene Shoemaker, a man who was declined to be an astronaut due to medical conditions, were flown into a crater on the moon on July 31, 1999, in a capsule aboard. the Lunar Prospector space probe. Any footprints made by astronauts on the moon are still there and will remain for millions of years because the moon has no atmosphere or wind. If you weighed 100 lbs on earth, you would weigh 16.6lbs on the moon.