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Current Events: Supermoons and Other Nonsense

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Credit: NASA/Bill Ingalls

By Stacy Palen

In July 2019, I received a few queries about a “black supermoon.” Since I had no idea what that was, I decided to track it down. It comes from a group of click-bait articles like this one, which are apparently taking off from a random article in Travel And Leisure magazine.

In brief, there is a new moon. It’s the second one in a month. Apparently, the Farmer’s Almanac calls this a “black moon.” This new moon occurs at perigee, when the moon is closest and has a (technically) larger angular size.

This has lately become known as a “supermoon.” The astute reader will note that you can’t even see this supermoon because it's a new moon. (Cue GIF of Kermit the Frog flailing his hands wildly in despair.)

In the last few years, “supermoons” of various kinds have suddenly become news.

A quick query of Google’s Ngram Viewer reveals that the word isn’t even in their database up through 2008, which is somewhat reassuring; it certainly feels like the term suddenly started popping up just a couple of years ago! But this was the first I had heard of a “black moon.”

Why does this matter? More astronomy in the news is better, right? Well, sort of.

Suppose everyone gets all excited about going out to observe the “black supermoon” and it’s nowhere near as interesting as they expect. Thereafter, they are less likely to follow up when something truly exciting happens, like the total solar eclipse that is coming to the US in 2024. (Have you made your plans yet? I have.)

Competing for the attention of the public, at this point, is a remarkably difficult prospect. I see why some outlets would seize on the popularity of astronomy to try to get a few seconds of that all-important attention. But in the long run, this is a failing strategy if the “news” fails to deliver what it has promised.

This particular article provides a good opportunity to help students see when they are being “click-baited” since there is literally nothing unusual happening.

A student who really understands the lunar orbit and phases of the moon will react to this article much like Ralphie in A Christmas Story, when he receives his Little Orphan Annie decoder ring and realizes the whole thing is a marketing ploy.

“A crummy commercial?” he exclaims as he throws away his long-awaited prize.

Given the last few years, I expect to see two or three articles like this over the course of the next academic year. Each time a student (current or former) asks about it, I will use it as a “teachable moment” and recommend that they fully engage their baloney detection kit when reading their news feeds!

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