One of the biggest actual effects that we observe of the moon on the earth is in the way that animals behave. For example, the full moon often brings more light so, Badgers are less likely to mark their territory during a full moon. Scorpions are really cool. during a full moon, that light of the moon reacts with a protein in the scorpion that causes them to glow blue in the dark. There's a species of Australian coral that goes nuts in the full moon.
A man who was killed in office as his prized by nightmare become a
folklore and horror movie cinema would have us believe that there is a supernatural power held by the moon. The reality is a bit different, but no less interesting. This is random acts of knowledge presented by Heartland Community College. I'm your host, Steve fast. Today we're talking about the power of the moon, and how it affects life on Earth. Let's welcome our moon experts.
My name is Libby torbreck. And I am a flight director at the Challenger Learning Center at Heartland Community College.
There are a lot of myths that have developed since ancient times about the moon, especially the full moon. But a lot of myths come from real places real things that happen. And maybe we don't have the capacity or didn't have the capacity to study those with science when they were first created. But there's a connection between the moon and the sometimes weird things that happen on the earth. So I wanted to talk about the moon. And first off, let's talk about some of the common ways we see the moon. The ways that the moon changes is given folklore, a lot of fuel. So why do we see the moon for instance, change color?
That's a great question. And that's one that can be explained with science, most often will see the moon as that beautiful white orb. But sometimes it looks yellow or even red and orange, particularly when it's close to the horizon. And the reason for that is not that the moon is changing colors mystically, or that it's actually made of cheese. But it's primarily that we're viewing the moon through the Earth's atmosphere, that envelope of gases that surrounds our planet. And that distorts the light coming through. And especially when the moon is low to the horizon, we're looking through more atmosphere, it's thicker. And what I found that was really interesting is the atmospheric particles scatter, especially the shorter wavelengths of light, like the blues and stuff. And the longer wavelengths of light, like reds and oranges get through to our eyes. So the more atmosphere we're looking through, then we're seeing kind of more of that scattering effect. And the moon is more of an orange tint, which is beautiful and perfect for fall.
This leads me to another question. Something that I've actually wondered is sometimes when the moon is low in the horizon, it seems to be huge. But then you get later in the night, it's up in the sky, and it seems much smaller. Now, the moon isn't actually changing its position to the earth that much during that time, what's going on there.
So this is actually a phenomena that's been studied for years. And it has a name, the Moon illusion. And scientists widely believed that it's all in our heads that it's an illusionary thing that our brain does. But they're split on just exactly how that happens. Like it's still puzzling scientists. So some scientists think that it has to do with when the moon is close to the horizon, and we're seeing landmarks like buildings and trees, that our brain is compensating and making it look larger than when it's by itself up in the sky. And it looks very tiny. Aristotle thought maybe it was the atmosphere or you know, just like when the moon seems to change colors, you can kind of bust that myth, if you're ever curious by comparing the moon to a similar object as it moves through the sky. So if you see it close to the horizon, you know, hold your thumb out and compare it to the size of your thumbnail. And then when it moves up higher in the sky, compare it to your thumbnail again, and you'll be shocked to find it hasn't actually changed in size at all. But this illusion, you know, in modern day science is still puzzling people as to 100%. Why does that happen?
That does bring up something that does affect many of the things we're going to be talking about today. And that is the moon's position to the earth. Because even though in the course of an evening, the moon isn't really any closer, or farther away. The moon does change position in relation to the earth. How much closer or farther away? Does the moon get?
Great question. So the moons average distance from the Earth is about 238,000 miles give or take. But the moon's orbit is eccentric, not eccentric, like a crazy ant, but eccentric like an oval shape, not a perfect circle. So that means at certain times, it's farther away and closer. As you mentioned, when the moon is closest to the earth and its orbit, we call that its perigee when it's furthest away. We call that the apogee. And so I pulled some numbers for the year 2019 And it's closest perigee this year. It was back In February, the moon was just over 221,000 miles away from the Earth. It's for this Apogee was actually also in February it was 252,000. So we're looking at a span of 22,000 ish miles kind of indifferent distance, which is not dramatically different. We actually have our next apogee and perigee is coming up October 10, Apogee, October 26, perigee, so closest point right before Halloween, November 7, and November 23. We're gonna have apogee and perigee and then December 5, and December 18. So you can go out with a camera, you know, take some comparison photos and see how much of an appreciable difference is it making?
Well, what does that difference in distance mean for the effects that the moon has? On the earth? Obviously, I think most people know enough to know that we see the effects of the gravitational relationship between the Earth and the Moon in the tides. Yeah, well, we see when the moon is closer, will we see a difference in a certain way? Well, it's not
going to be a super appreciable difference. One kind of common misconception when people hear oh, yeah, the moon, it affects the Earth's tides. They're thinking all bodies of water are shifting all the time because of the Moon's orbit around the Earth. But really, the gravitational effects of the moon while they're strong, it's far away. And so the tides affect our largest bodies of water, our oceans, but not really lakes or even many seas. And so the moon's distance from the Earth isn't going to make a dramatic and appreciable difference, kind of on the way things move and the way things work, at least, not physically and scientifically, but in our minds and in our emotions and our wonder, sometimes the magic of the moon. And just knowing that it has an effect can create mental and other effects on us
what things actually are happening to affect life on Earth by where the moon is and what it's doing.
One of the biggest actual effects that we observe of the moon on the earth is in the way that animals behave if you want to go down that route. For example, the full moon often brings more light. So I made a couple of notes, there's some pretty humorous effects, Badgers are less likely to mark their territory during a full moon. Because of that light. Lions who often hunt best at night will actually often wait and hunt during the day after a full moon, which is unusual for lions, but they know prey is scarce during that full moon, it's easy visibility. Scorpions are really cool. during a full moon, the light of the moon reacts with a protein in a scorpion that causes them to glow blue in the dark. And a lot of those nocturnal creatures like rattlesnakes, they're not as likely to come out during a full moon, because hey, they're gonna be more visible to predators and things like that. But what's cool is while we're seeing these nocturnal animals that kind of hide in the full moon, there's a species of Australian coral, that goes nuts in the full moon, these, you know, things are reacted by the light, they reproduce and have a great time, they love the full moon, you know, under the sea off Australia. And so it's really funny to kind of see these different effects that the moon has on wildlife.
I think maybe the Miss might be that the transformation of animals or anything with the full moon has to do with some sort of mysterious energy, but really, it's just the presence of more light in the sky.
Yeah, that's really the primary factor. Even when we're looking at how the moon you know, people ask if the moon affects sleep, the primary factor is the light of the moon and more moonlight studies show it takes people longer to fall asleep, their sleep quality is not as good they wake up earlier, kind of in relation to that. What studies are finding though, is even with sleep masks, and darkening shades, and modern houses that aren't out on the prairie with no shutters, people's sleep cycles can still be a little interrupted. But that's a little bit different than, you know, a scientific light related effect on people.
So one of the things that has arisen over the centuries is that the moon has this emotional effect we mentioned earlier, you know, it's the light, but if somebody is going crazy or turning into a werewolf or something, because of the full moon, it's not something that is quantifiable. These myths do go back, you know, 1000s of years, but there are some things that need to kind of be debunked the east to there used to be a common perception among what we would call now kind of quack science that the moon affected epilepsy, but that's been disproven. There are other things too. There's no proven sense other than there being more light in the sky, that the moon affects people emotionally.
Yeah, I mean, the emotional effects of the moon on people are primarily just any kind of fascination they have within any interest. I mean, emotional effects of the moon you know, me I personal interest, of course lies with spaceflight and men landing on the moon. And when I see a really good full moon, I will get emotional thinking about the things humanity has done in relation to the moon. But that's a little different than science to your right, the Journal of epilepsy behavior found there's no correlation for seizures. Mayo Clinic did a study and found there was no statistical difference in people checking in for emergency psychiatric help, during full moon times and not full moon times, you know, because the lunacy of the full moon was a big thing. emergency room visits that were studied at a Suburban Hospital in the American Journal of Emergency Medicine didn't have any significant changes during full moon times and things like that. So I think a lot of the just the, when something weird happens, people notice, oh, there happens to be this glowing orb in the sky. These correlations abound, which is interesting kind of fun, but not necessarily grounded in science or fact.
Well, when we talk about the relationships that the moon has here on Earth, we're not the only planet that has moons. We're not the only planet that has satellites. Do we know interesting things about how the satellites, one or more of other planets are affecting those planets look at Jupiter or Saturn, and they have multiple moons. So what did those moons do to those planets?
Yeah, the moons of other planets, they do affect their planets. But kind of more significantly, what we've seen so far is the planets affecting their moons. And one of the best examples is Europa and one of the moons of Jupiter Europa has an icy shell with an ocean inside. So we think about our moon's gravity affects the tides of the Earth, Jupiter, much more massive is going to affect the way Europa works. In fact, Jupiter's gravity is so massive that it kind of pushes and pulls on Europa's icy surface like an accordion. And so if you look at pictures of Europa, it has these giant cracks running through it that are a result of that gravitational flexing from its relationship with Jupiter. And so NASA is actually building a mission right now the Europa Clipper that's going to go study Europa and crack through that ice and it will be able to give us more insights on that relationship between Jupiter and its moon also.
So the one thing that I know from talking to you before Libby is that you think the moon is really cool. So as we are looking up into the night sky, maybe say, over the course of a month, what are some of the things about the moon that we should be looking for thinking about and trying to discover about our moon? While we're waiting to see how it affects?
See if life arises? Yes. Oh, that is a wonderful question. So some, just some cool things you can look for when you're out observing the moon, some of the things you can look for things we talked about earlier, look for changes in color. When the moon is near the horizon, notice the size of the moon and compare it as it rises, you can observe the moon to see if it's waxing or waning. That is if the light is growing and dimming. Actually, I have a funny story for you about that, to know, if the moon is getting brighter, or if it's getting dimmer, I learned a poem a long time ago, if the light is on the right, the moon is getting bright, if the light is on the left, but I never learned to the rest of that poem. Something that rhymes with left left well, so my husband was getting ready to teach Earth Science for the first time a number of years ago, and he was talking about the phases of the moon. And so I told him, here's a rhyme that you can use with your students. And you can substitute any word at the end goal for shock value, and they'll remember it. So I said, if the light is on the right, the moon is getting bright. If the light is on the left, the moon is getting seahorse and of course he just lost it. But then the next day he did go to school and he taught his sixth graders with the word seahorse and they will come back to him you know two years later and still say, hey, hey, Mr. Torre back, I know this and they'll say the rhyme and they'll know. And so one of the things I like to look for if the moon is in the sky, and I can see it is is the light on the right. Is it going to continue to get brighter towards the full moon? Or is the light on the left? Are we going to fade down from full to that little crescent moon and then a seahorse and that a seahorse? Sorry. So let me thanks so much for coming in and talking to us about the moon and debunking a few myths. And letting us know about the science that is behind some of the things that we do know happens with the Earth and the Moon? You bet this is a fun topic because there's science but there's human experience involved in correlations and inconclusive studies. And that's fun to think about.
Libby to our back teaches the science of the moon at Challenger Learning Center on the campus of Heartland Community College. She spoke to us today about the science and myths of the moon. To hear other interviews about science as well as history, art and other topics. Subscribe on Apple podcasts, Spotify, or wherever you found this episode. Thanks for listening
