Astrology

This full Moon will appear to be up to 14% larger and 30% brighter than most other full moons during the year.

The reason for this phenomenon being that this month the Moon becomes full on its closest approach to Earth on May 5, 2012.

Here's a nice NASA video explaining the "Supermoon" phenomenon, a term coined by our good friend Richard Nolle.

It should still be pretty good again tonight if you have clear skies.

Oopsies, I was supposed to post this two nights ago.

Alas, I got caught up listening to old records with an old friend and forgot to do it.

Anyway, not much has changed, Mars hasn't moved much.

Go out and look.

From spaceweather.com

Mars is at its closest to Earth for 2012. The Red Planet is only 101 million km away and shines about six times brighter than a 1st magnitude star. Look for it in the eastern sky at sunset. The burnt-orange color of Mars is very distinctive, especially when seen from rural areas with clear skies.

Photo by Luis Argerich, taken March 3, 2012 in Veronica, Bueonos Aires, Argentina

On the night of March the 3rd Mars reached opposition. At even this unfavorable opposition Mars was really bright and high in the sky shining with a crimson red hue. I took this image at the town of Veronica, Argentina. A star filter was used, straight from the camera without processing.

You may remember from some time ago our post discussing the coincidental or not alignment of the Earth, Sun, and Mercury along with the comet Elenin on the exact dates of the record breaking (among other things) earthquakes in Chile, New Zealand and Japan.

Good news, you don't have to remember it, just click here.

The bad news is that Elenin is about to make a new series of alignments, only this time it will be on our side of the solar system and very near Earth.

Despite the fact that it contains 6 to 8 minutes of discussion on the Hopi Indian prophecies concerning the Blue and Red Katchinas and the resultant destructions here on Earth following their passage through our solar system, the following video is the most serious scientific analysis I've been able to find concerning the possibilities regarding the passing of this comet.

Consider yourself warned.

Ok then, first of all be warned that the guy doing this video is going to try to sell you some silver at the end of this thing.

He doesn't try very hard.

He doesn't even give you his telephone number just in case straight out of left field you happen to be a buyer.

So as far as I'm concerned the guy is harmless.

Except .....

This is some seriously scary stuff being promoted here.

I'm not kidding.

What's going on here is that Mike is manipulating a model published by NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory of the orbit of the comet Elenin/dwarf brown star, take your pick.

When I use the word manipulate in this conversation it's not a bad thing as he is simply setting the model for the following series of dates:

September 4, 2010, date of the Christchurch, New Zealand 7.2 magnitude earthquake.

February 27, 2010, date of the Santiago, Chile 8.8 magnitude earthquake

February 11, 2011, date of the Christchurch, New Zealand, 6.3 magnitude earthquake

March, 11, 2011 date of the Fukushima Japan, 9.1 magnitude earthquake. 

And then the following dates:

September 27, 2011 ?????

October 17, 2011 ?????

November 5, 2011 ?????

His conclusion?

You ain't gonna like it.

Now being me, I had to check it out for myself.

It all works exactly like the video.

If you click the photo of the model below it will take you to the exact NASA model used in the video.

Try it for yourself.

Go ahead I dare ya, scare the crap right out of your own self.

Sissy!

 Now NASA, right here explains very patiently that all of the above is simply a very large nothingburger.

For NASA to be more right about this particular issue than they have been on let's say ... ummmmmm ... that global warming thing, would in my mind be a very good thing.

Only time will tell.

From Science.NASA.gov

Get up early tomorrow morning and look to the east.

You'll see something you won't see every day.

Katie K. has cache.

Katie K. (not her real initial) has been with us from the very beginning.

Katie was Terry D's first secretary and as such typed (I've always suspected wrote, which he vehemently denies while she stays mum which only hardens my opinion) Terry D's letters when we were nothing but a newly minted group of young grownups firing letters around to each other in an effort to figure out just what the hell was going on.

Anyway, Katie followed the conversation on facebook which resulted from the quotes on astrology you'll find three or five posts below, liked one of the comments and asked if I would give it a post of it's own.

Around here, whatever Katie wants, Katie gets.

A Christian's Defense of Astrology

If you are a Christian and have read the Bible, you have to acknowledge that it was a “Star” placed in the heavens that caused the Magi to mount up in search of “The King of the Jews”.

Genesis 1:14.

If you are a Christian and have read the Bible, you have to acknowledge that it was God himself who said, “Let there be lights in the firmament of the heavens to divide the day from the night; and let them be for signs and seasons, and for days and years;

Matthew 2:1-2.

It wasn’t Pete Seeger who came up with the idea, it was Solomon in Ecclesiastes Chapter 3 who says, “To everything there is a season, A time for every purpose under heaven: 2 A time to be born, And a time to die; A time to plant, And a time to pluck what is planted; 3 A time to kill, And a time to heal; A time to break down, And a time to build up; 4 A time to weep, And a time to laugh; A time to mourn, And a time to dance; 5 A time to cast away stones, And a time to gather stones; A time to embrace, And a time to refrain from embracing; 6 A time to gain, And a time to lose; A time to keep, And a time to throw away; 7 A time to tear, And a time to sew; A time to keep silence, And a time to speak; 8 A time to love, And a time to hate; A time of war, And a time of peace.”

Ecclesiastes 3:1-8.

The fact that men aren’t very good at understanding the times and cycles of our lives and world beyond the very simple patterns of the tides and the seasons and worse still at predicting them, is neither here nor there.

There are now thousands of years of man’s recorded history available for us to study.

And there are millions of years of astronomical history available for us to study.

Seems quite the waste not to spend a little time comparing the two.

If you check out the moon tonight as it rises, you will see it at it the closest it's been to planet Earth in eighteen years.

Click the photo below for an outstanding presentation from Space.com.

If you have the time, go through all of the half a dozen or so links they provide including the photo essay, the infographic and NASA's page explaining that no ... Supermoon's don't cause earthquakes.

Very good stuff.

The photo below will link you up to the reprint of our friend Richard Nolle's increasingly famous piece about Supermoon published now twice in The Mountain Astrologer.

Also good stuff.

Ken Ring at PredictWeather.com who claims over 5000 subscribers including farmers, corporations and government agencies, uses in his own words, "trends and cycles of Moon orbits to predict the weather", scored some notoriety lately for having tweeted a Valentine's Day prediction for a Christchurch, New Zealand earthquake between February 15 and 25.

Damn that was a convoluted sentence.

Be reminded here of the devastating magnitude 6.3 earthquake the hit Christchurch February 21, 2011.

In an article at his site titled The Ethics of Warning, in which Mr. Ring defends himself and his predictions from charges of fear mongering and pseudo science, he writes the following:

Earthquakes correlate with kingtides - they are a function of the kingtide in the land deep under the ground.

The whole 2/3 of the planet that is beneath the Earth's surface has a moving egg-shaped bulge that, as the earth daily rotates, is always pointing to the moon, just as when a magnet is moved above a plate of iron filings and the area under the magnet is always more responsive.

The perigee (day that the moon is closest to earth each month) is in control of the timing of the kingtide. Sometimes new moon accompanies perigee (as on 4 Sept 2010), sometmes full moon (22 Feb 2011), so kingtide occurs around these dates as well. 

Before new year kingtide days were new moon-related. From February onwards full moon has accompanied perigee, so kingtides were full moon-related.

It does not mean all full moons (or new moons) bring the biggest earthquakes.

Perigee (closest approach to the Earth) is also a factor.

I can find no other use of the phrase kingtide anywhere (I know you believe me when I say that I looked) that correlates in any way to Mr. Rings.

He predicts an second earthquake March 20, 2011 in Christchurch based on the astronomy of that day, namely the "Supermoon" on March 19, and the Jupiter, Saturn opposition which is exact on March 28, 2011, but is within a few degrees from mid March until mid April 2011.

Click on the below sketch of the Jupiter, Saturn opposition for a radically different way to look at both the world and the universe around you.

Remembering as always ..... head ..... swivel.

Our friend Richard Nolle at Astropro is picking up some press from the mainstream lately

The following is from an article at Accuweather.com.

As always, click the photo to link up the entire piece.  

Extreme Super (Full) Moon to Cause Chaos?

Mar 1, 2011; 7:54 AM ET

Coming up later this month (March 19 to be exact) the moon will make its closest approach to Earth (called lunar perigee) in 18 years. A new or full moon at 90% or greater of its closest perigee to Earth has been named a "SuperMoon" by astrologer Richard Nolle. This term has been recently picked up by astronomers. An extreme "SuperMoon" is when the moon is full or new as well as at its 100% greater mean perigee (closest) distance to earth. By this definition, last month's full moon, this month's and next month's will all be extreme "SuperMoons".

Please visit Richard's website by clicking here.

I have read several "new age" forecasts that go something like this: "Extreme SuperMoon this month (March 2011) will bring strong earthquakes and storms and/or unusual climate patterns." Google the term 'extreme SuperMoon March 2011' and see for yourself what comes up. The validity of these types of forecasts can be debated ad nauseum.

There were SuperMoons in 1955, 1974, 1992 and 2005. These years had their share of extreme weather and other natural events. Is the Super Moon and these natural occurences a coincidence? Some would say yes; some would say no. I'm not here to pick sides and say I'm a believer or non-believer in subjects like this, but as a scientist I know enough to ask questions and try to find answers.

We obviously know that there are scientific laws that say the moon affects the Earth (i.e. tides). There are also less proven theories that propose that the moon affects the Earth in other ways (i.e. abnormal behavior during a full moon). Can the Super (full) Moon contribute to extreme weather and other natural phenomenon?

Here are Richard's thoughts on March's "SuperMoon" activity from his February 28, 2011 post.

Click on the map for the entire post.

Markets, geopolitics and history aside, you can’t get there from here if you don’t get out of Mother Nature’s way.

First and foremost, that means being mindful of the March 19 full moon 28° 48' Virgo.

It’s arguably the year’s most extreme SuperMoon, for a couple of reasons: it’s the closest SuperMoon of the year, occurring within an hour of lunar perigee (the Moon’s closest approach to Earth): the Moon will look huge when it rises at sunset.

And being so close to the vernal equinox, this SuperMoon occurs within hours of the moment the full moon crosses the celestial equator from north to south, just as the Sun crosses in the opposite direction. That makes this a major geophysical stress window, centered on the actual alignment date but in effect from the 16th through the 22nd.

Of course you can expect the usual: a surge in extreme tides along the coasts, a rash of moderate-to-severe seismic activity (including magnitude 5+ earthquakes, tsunami and volcanic eruptions), and most especially in this case a dramatic spike in powerful storms with heavy precipitation, damaging winds and extreme electrical activity.

Floods are a big part of the picture in this case, although some of these will be dry electrical storms that spark fast-spreading wildfires.

As always, keep your head on a swivel.