The month of Sept 2022 contains two major celestial events–the Harvest Moon (now past) and the Autumnal Equinox. Thus, this issue of my Hideaway Pond blog contains a double dip of moon dust. Those with lactose intolerance will no doubt be happy to know that there is no green cheese involved
So Autumn is on the way, though it’s too late to reap the beauty of September’s full moon. This year the moon will return to normal after summer has yielded four super moons in a row. That is, four full moons that rose during the moon’s closest approach to Earth during its elliptical orbit. Its perigee. This makes the moon appear larger than an average full moon.
September’s full moon has been called by its Old European name, the Harvest Moon. This is the closest full moon to the autumnal equinox, when many crops are harvested in the Northern Hemisphere. Additionally, some farmers have historically used the full moon’s light to work late into the night harvesting their crops. Now we know who to blame for daylight saving time.
The moon goes by several non-European names, as well. Best known among them is the Corn Moon, coined by the Algonquin tribes who inhabited what is now the northeastern United States and southeastern Canada. The Maine Farmers’ Almanac, which began publishing Native American moon names in the 1930s, notes that the Corn Moon rises during the part of the year when corn, pumpkins, squash and various other fall staples are harvested. Yum.
The full moon occurs about once a month when the sun, Earth and moon align on an invisible 180-degree line. The moon’s orbit is about 5 degrees different from Earth’s, so our satellite is usually a little higher or lower than Earth’s shadow. Thus allowing it to illuminate Earth, The next full moon will be the Hunter’s Moon, which falls on Oct. 9. Artemis willing.
So when you eat your Wheaties tomorrow morning, sprinkle them with a little moon dust instead of sugar. Lighter and lactose free.
Equinox
This year the fall equinox arrives on Thursday, September 22, 2022, at 9:04 P.M. EDT . This date marks the start of fall in the Northern Hemisphere and spring in the Southern Hemisphere The equinox occurs at the same moment worldwide. Hopefully.
The autumnal equinox is an astronomical event that marks the start of autumn . In the Northern Hemisphere, the autumnal equinox occurs in September. In the Southern Hemisphere, it occurs in March. That is, in both hemispheres, half way between the winter and summer solstices. The operative word being “occurs”.
For those in the Northern Hemisphere, when the Sun crosses the equator going from north to south, this marks the autumnal equinox. When it crosses from south to north, this marks the vernal equinox. In the Southern Hemisphere, it’s the reverse. Got that?
After the autumnal equinox, days become shorter than nights as the Sun continues to rise later and nightfall arrives earlier. This ends with the winter solstice, after which days start to grow longer once again.
Note that fall foliage isn’t due to current weather conditions. This is a common misconception. Leaves change color because of the amount of daylight and photosynthesis.
Since the earliest civilizations of mankind, people have made sense of the world about them by creating stories and drawings to explain the complex and often frightening occurrences in their lives. Using available knowledge and experience, tales were woven around familiar and the unusual to explain these events in the absence of understanding the physical world.
Astronomy has more than its fair share of myths and legends. Early people struggled to understand the movements of the planets and stars, the effects of the Sun and the Moon and the changes in seasons. In addition, occasional and frightening events such as an eclipse or meteor showers would create fear and panic and belief in the foretelling of doom or disaster.
The Universe is everything. It contains all matter and energy. Earth and the Moon are part of the Universe, as are the other planets and their many dozens of moons. The Sun is one among hundreds of billions of stars in the Milky Way galaxy. And most of those stars have their own planets. Exoplanets.
All of them, including our own, are thought to have supermassive black holes at their centers. All the stars in all the galaxies and all the other things that astronomers can’t even observe are part of the universe. It is, simply, everything.
Even with all of our acquired knowledge, scientific research and sophisticated equipment, the Universe remains an awesome enigma to us. Mysterious, inspiring and overwhelming. Even, in some ways, as frightening in its incomprehensible vastness, as it was to those earliest civilizations of mankind. Millions of years ago.