Supermoon March 20th

[LadyDeath]

People Be safe and careful on this day..please do not go to the beach because of the strange tides...earth being closer to the moon will MAY OR MAY NOT result in all kinds of things being triggered on this day..

On March 19, the moon will swing around Earth more closely than it has in the past 18 years, lighting up the night sky from just 221,567 miles away. On top of that, it will be full. And one astrologer believes it could inflict massive damage on the planet.

Richard Nolle, a noted astrologer who runs the website astropro.com, has famously termed the upcoming full moon at lunar perigee (the closest approach during its orbit) an "extreme supermoon."

When the moon goes super-extreme, Nolle says, chaos will ensue: Huge storms, earthquakes, volcanoes and other natural disasters can be expected to wreak havoc on Earth. (It should be noted that astrology is not a real science, but merely makes connections between astronomical and mystical events.)

But do we really need to start stocking survival shelters in preparation for the supermoon?

The question is not actually so crazy. In fact scientists have studied related scenarios for decades. Even under normal conditions, the moon is close enough to Earth to make its weighty presence felt: It causes the ebb and flow of the ocean tides.

The moon's gravity can even cause small but measurable ebbs and flows in the continents, called "land tides" or "solid Earth tides," too. The tides are greatest during full and new moons, when the sun and moon are aligned either on the same or opposite sides of the Earth.

According to John Vidale, a seismologist at the University of Washington in Seattle and director of the Pacific Northwest Seismic Network, particularly dramatic land and ocean tides do trigger earthquakes. "Both the moon and sun do stress the Earth a tiny bit, and when we look hard we can see a very small increase in tectonic activity when they're aligned," Vidale told Life's Little Mysteries, a sister site to Space.com.
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At times of full and new moons, "you see a less than 1 percent increase in earthquake activity, and a slightly higher response in volcanoes."

The effect of tides on seismic activity is greatest in subduction zones such as the Pacific Northwest, where one tectonic plate is sliding under another.

William Wilcock, another seismologist at the University of Washington, explained: "When you have a low tide, there's less water, so the pressure on the seafloor is smaller. That pressure is clamping the fault together, so when it's not there, it makes it easier for the fault to slip."

According to Wilcock, earthquake activity in subduction zones at low tides is 10 percent higher than at other times of the day, but he hasn't observed any correlations between earthquake activity and especially low tides at new and full moons. Vidale has observed only a very small correlation.

What about during a lunar perigee? Can we expect more earthquakes and volcanic eruptions on March 19, when the full moon will be so close?

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The moon's gravitational pull at lunar perigee, the scientists say, is not different enough from its pull at other times to significantly change the height of the tides and thus the likelihood of natural disasters.

"A lot of studies have been done on this kind of thing by USGS scientists and others," John Bellini, a geophysicist at the U.S. Geological Survey, told Life's Little Mysteries. "They haven't found anything significant at all."

Vidale concurred. "Practically speaking, you'll never see any effect of lunar perigee," he said. "It's somewhere between 'It has no effect' and 'It's so small you don't see any effect.'"

The bottom line is, the upcoming supermoon won't cause a preponderance of earthquakes, although the idea isn't a crazy one.

"Earthquakes don't respond as much to the tides as you'd think they would. There should actually be more of an effect," said Vidale.

Most natural disasters have nothing to do with the moon at all. The Earth has a lot of pent up energy, and it releases it anytime the buildup gets too great. The supermoon probably won't push it past the tipping point, but we'll know for sure, one way or the other, by March 20.

 

[admin]

Well we will just have to see tomorrow, hope it not true even if i believe in astrology. What this on the local media?

 

[admin]

The Japanese tsunami came just days after warnings that the closeness of the Moon to Earth could cause tidal waves, volcanic eruptions and earthquakes.

On March 19, the Moon will be at its closest since 1992, at just 221,567 miles away, and some claim its gravitational pull will bring continuing chaos.

The theory is that the “supermoon” will cause shifts in the Earth’s surface. Previous supermoons took place in 1955, 1974, 1992 and 2005 – all years of extreme weather, supporters of the theory claim.

The Boxing Day tsunami that killed hundreds of thousands of people in Indonesia happened two weeks before the January 2005 supermoon.

And on Christmas Day 1974, Cyclone Tracy laid waste to Darwin, Australia.

Three days ago, US astrologer Richard Nolle warned about the supermoon, a term he coined in 1979. He said they “have a historical ­association with strong storms, very high and extreme tides and also earthquakes”.

But seismologist Professor George Helffrich of Bristol University branded the theory “nonsense”. He added: The moon has no significant effect on ­earthquake-triggering.”

John S Whalley, geoscience programme manager at the University of Portsmouth, said: “There is no established ­correlation. It is all too easy, with hindsight, to link major ­earthquakes to variations in all sorts of parameters.”

 

[blackie]

Thanks to an unusually close full moon this month, there will be a rapidly changing lineup of the moon, a bright star and a bright planet Friday and Saturday nights.
The moon will be shining brilliantly, of course, and will seem to almost overwhelm one of the brightest stars in the sky, the bluish Spica in the constellation Virgo. Spica will be situated below and to the left of the moon as they rise above the east-southeast horizon around 8:30 p.m. local daylight time. And situated off to the left of Spica will be a starlike object twice as bright as it, shining sedately with a yellow-white hue. This object, however, is not a star but the ringed planet Saturn.
During the course of the night, it will be interesting to watch how quickly the moon appears to change its position relative to Spica and Saturn. Normally the moon appears to shift its position by roughly its own apparent diameter per hour against the background of stars. But on these nights the moon will appear to move a little quicker because it will be near its closest approach to our planet, the point in its orbit called perigee. And the closer the moon is to Earth, the faster it moves in its orbit.
The moon will arrive at its perigee point tomorrow at 1 p.m. EDT, but it will be very nearly as close tonight and tomorrow morning. The moon will be roughly 222,900 miles (359,000 km) from Earth, and its movement will be very noticeable during the course of the night due to its proximity to Saturn and Spica.

So during the night, skywatchers can watch as the moon slowly creeps past them. At one point, depending on exactly where observers are, the trio will seem to form a straight line. From New York, that moment comes at 10:45 p.m. EDT; from Los Angeles, it will be at 7:55 p.m. PDT.

It won’t last very long, though, because by 2:30 a.m. Saturday, the moon will appear directly below Spica, with Saturn shining above and to Spica’s left. And three hours later, as the dawn twilight is brightening the eastern sky, the moon-Spica-Saturn trio will now resemble a triangle, sinking low in the southwest.

Saturn will be at opposition to the sun on April 15, at a distance of 810 million miles (1.3 billion km) from Earth. It will then take 73 minutes for sunlight reflected from Saturn to reach our planet. Viewing through a telescope magnifying at least 30-power will reveal the famous ring system, tipped about 13.7 degrees from edgewise with the north face in view.

Friday night, when Saturn sits near Spica and the moon, observers have a prime opportunity to make a positive identification of the ringed world.

And those who live near an ocean shoreline should keep this in mind: The tidal range will be more extreme than usual this weekend and into the start of next week. Thanks to the timing of the full moon, which nearly coincides with perigee, low tides will be lower than normal and high tides will be higher than normal.

 

[LadyDeath]

oh my VIRGOOOO!!! Heh ^_^ can't wait for thissssss ..thank you blackie for sharing much appreciated gunna tell everyonee