Sturgeon Moon

[Slim]

If the title of this thread has given rise to any concern, fear not. It's not about Scotland's First Minister or her bottom.

Rather, it's about the fourth and final Supermoon (but see below) of this year. It's already passed now but there are some nice pics on the BBC site here:

https://www.bbc.co.uk/news/in-pictures-62518102

A Supermoon refers to the Moon being closer than 360,000km from Earth, but actually the closest the Moon came last night was 361,408 km so strictly speaking, it wasn't a Supermoon. The average distance is 384,400 km, the maximum is 405,000 km.

The Moon is receding from the Earth at a rate of 3.78cm every year. When Neil Armstrong went there, it was on average about 200cm closer.

Four billion years ago, about half a billion years after it was formed, the Moon orbited the Earth at a distance of roughly 125,000km and would have looked three times bigger than it does now in the sky. The tidal effects would have been colossal.

This would have been roughly the time the first microorganisms appeared on Earth.

[Nickslikk2112]

Don't trigger me!