Closest full moon on March 19

No truth about reports over internet:

Colombo University Senior Lecturer in Physics Dr Chandana Jayaratne yesterday said there was no truth in internet reports that the March 19 full moon will cause earthquakes, tsunamis, cyclones and other extreme weather disasters.

“The March 19 full moon will be a special type of full moon since it will coincide with the moon’s perigee. The moon’s orbit around the Earth is not circular, but elliptical. When the moon is at its closest approach to Earth we say that the Moon is at perigee. The furthest point of this elliptical orbit is known as apogee. As such the Moon comes closer to the Earth once in about every month, but not every time the full moon too falls on the same day, Dr Jayaratne said in a release yesterday.

He said on March 19, 2011 only will full moon and perigee coincide, but the Sun and Moon will be lined up with the Earth’s equator since it’s almost the time of the vernal equinox (where sun passes the equator Dr Jayaratne said on March 19, the moon lies only 356,575 kilometres away.

Earlier this month, the moon swung to apogee – its farthest point for the month – on March 6. At that time, the moon was 406, 583 kilometres distant. The moon comes much closer to the Earth during March 18-20 this month. March 19 won’t only feature the closest Full Moon of the year, but the Moon at its nearest and largest for all of 2011. When the moon reaches its absolute closest point to the Earth we called an “extreme supermoon”. This is the first extreme super–moon occurs in nearly 19 years, he said.

Closest full moons recur in cycles of 14 lunar months (413,428 days) and therefore this is not a very rare phenomenon to panic. (A lunar month refers to the time period between successive full moon,s a mean period of 29.53059 days).

This time period is equal to about one year, one month, and 18 days. Full moon and perigee will realign again on May 6, 2012, because the 14th full moon after March 19, 2011 full moon will fall on that date, Dr Jayaratne said.

He said every perigee moon has not brought disaster and this one is no different.

A perigee moon will affect tides and even appear bit bigger. This extra-closeness of the full moon on March 19 will usher in somewhat larger tides along the ocean shorelines for the next several days, especially if these high tides are accompanied by strong onshore winds.

Fishermen are aware about these high tidies and the precautionary measures necessary to be taken. Anybody can relate any sort of natural disaster happening anywhere in the world to an astronomical event happening almost daily, but scientists found no correlation between those. The public should never panic over this incident, Dr Jayaratne said.

Moon, Saturn and the bright star Spica are visible close to each other on Saturday night sky on March 19, 2011 creating a beautiful view to sky gazers, he said.