No, super moon didn't cause any disasters

KUALA LUMPUR: Contrary to popular belief, the "super moon" phenomenon does not cause earthquakes, typhoons, tsunamis and other natural disasters.

Neither does it cause purple unicorns to trailblaze across the sky.

The super moon, or the perigee moon, is a phenomenon when the moon's orbit is closest to the Earth. It occurred last night, with the moon coming nearest to Earth in the past 18 years, giving it the appearance that it had grown in size.

An article on the United States' National Aeronautics and Space Administration website explained that full moons vary in size because of the elliptical shape of the moon's orbit.

One side (the perigee) is about 50,000km closer to Earth than the other (the apogee), resulting in a full moon that is about 14 per cent bigger and 30 per cent brighter than "lesser" moons that occur on the apogee side of the moon's orbit.

Universiti Sains Malaysia Astronomy and Atmospheric Science Research Unit lecturer and astronomy club adviser Associate Professor Dr Chong Hon Yew said last night was particularly significant because the alignment of the moon, the Earth, the Sun and all the other planets formed roughly a straight line at a 50º angle.

Chong said if you imagined the Earth as a dot on a piece of paper, the moon was to its left and further to the left was Saturn while on the right side of the Earth was the Sun and further lined up towards the right were the other planets: Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, Uranus and Neptune.

"This is called a 'planetary alignment'. It is an odd occurrence but it does not result in disasters as predicted by doomsayers," said Chong.

However, the planetary alignment would not be visible because they would be in the daytime sky with the exception of Saturn, located in the nighttime sky.

He explained that the tides yesterday were a bit higher than usual because of the closer proximity of the moon (resulting in a stronger gravitational pull).

"The only significant effect it had was on the psychology of humans."

- The New Straits Times