On Wed, 22 Dec 1999, DEEN, JASON(RPT) wrote: > > This year there will be a full moon on the winter solstice, > December 22. Since this full moon will occur in conjunction with a lunar > perigee (the point in the moon's elliptical orbit that is closest to Earth), > the moon will appear about 14% larger than it does at apogee (the point in > its orbit that is farthest from the Earth). Also, this will be the closest > perigee of the moon this year (the moon's orbit is constantly deforming). > Since the Earth is also several million miles closer to the sun at this time > of the year than in the summer, sunlight striking the moon is about 7% > stronger, making the moonlight brighter. If the weather is clear and there > is a snow cover where you live, it is believed that even car headlights will > be superfluous. > On December 21st, 1866 the Lakota Sioux took advantage of > this combination of occurrences and staged a devastating retaliatory ambush > on soldiers in the Wyoming Territory. except for the whole bit about the Sioux attacking during the day, not at night [NPR]. > In laymen's terms, it will be a super bright full moon, AND > it hasn't happened this way for 133 years! Our ancestors 133 years ago saw > this. Our descendants 100 or so years from now will see this again. this is also incorrect as per an article in S&T: http://www.skyandtelescope.com/news/pr_991217brightmoon.html though, it would have been nice. Other things that are true: November 19, 1999 was the last completely odd day we'll have in a while 11/19/1999 (all digits are odd) won't happen again until 1/1/3111 Last all even date we had was 8/28/888 next one is 2/2/2000 gotta love numbers. -j