The Cow Jumped Over the Moon

Tonight's full Moon will be almost 12 percent bigger than some of the full Moons this year, according to NASA. For me, this explains a lot.

My week has been unusually weird; Monday was normal, but ever since Tuesday I have faced a number of oddities that I shan't get into on this blog, not only for the sake of sparing my hands from typing a novel, but also for your boredom's sake. I asked one of my co-workers on Tuesday if it was a full moon that night, and saw from my calander that it wasn't. Perhaps weird things happen leading up to a full moon, or perhaps I just have (probably all in this order) crappy/strange/awesome luck lately. I dunno.

Anywho, here is something you may not know about tonight's bigger-than-normal full moon...

The reason: The Moon is near perigee, the point on its slightly out-of-round orbit that is closest to Earth.

This Moon is called the Harvest Moon, owing to its timing of being nearest the autumnal equinox. Farmers in the past relied on it to harvest all night. The Harvest Moon is not always closer and bigger than normal.

The Moon will rise around 6 p.m. local time (compute exact time for your location). It will be officially "full" at 11:13 p.m. ET, though the Moon is never really full.

Some other strange Moon facts:

The Moon is not bigger when on the horizon.
The Moon is moving away as you read this. Far away.
There is no proof the Moon makes people crazy.

Late Monday night and into Tuesday morning, Oct. 10, the Moon will pass in front of the Pleiades star cluster, creating an interesting skywatching opportunity for skywatchers with telescopes.

There you have it folks--there is no evidence that full moons either make people, or machines, crazy, but this has still been a crazy week. If anyone has any explanation, I'm all ears!