[nukkad] Winter Solstice

[Harshal Chhaya <hchhaya@epsilon.pair.com>]

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Passing on something interesting...


SOMETHING TO LOOK FORWARD TO ON DECEMBER 22, 1999.

This year will be the first full moon to occur on the winter solstice, 
Dec. 22, commonly called the first day of winter. Since a full moon on 
the winter solstice occurs in conjunction with a lunar perigee (point 
in the moon's orbit that is closest to Earth), the moon will appear 
about 14% larger than it does at apogee (the point in it's elliptical orbit 
that is farthest from the Earth).

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 it brighter. Also, this will be the closest 
perigee of the Moon of the year since the moon's orbit is constantly 
deforming. 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 21, 1866 the Lakota Sioux (a tribe of Native Americans) took 
advantage of this combination of occurrences and staged a devastating 
retaliatory ambush on soldiers in the Wyoming Territory.

In laymen's terms it will be a super bright full moon, much more than 
the usual 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. I hope someone else might find this interesting! 
Remember this will happen December 22, 1999.....


Regards,
- 'shal
harshal@mumbai-central.com
-- 
      http://www.mumbai-central.com  <-- Where Mumbaikars meet


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