Boy, if this post really tried to sum all of that up, it would be a really long post! I guess a better title for it would be "a specific question that we still cannot answer:"
Why does the moon look so big when it is close to the horizon and so small when it is higher in the sky?
(told you I'd write about this soon)
You may think you know the answer. We've all heard the most popular one- the "horizon perspective" explanation- which claims that it only "appears" bigger because you are seeing it next to houses and trees and whatnot, but as this NASA article shows, that does not fully explain it. In fact, no one really knows for sure! Is it because of the apparent "dome" shape of the sky? Is it happening at the level of the physical mechanics of our eyes? Is it all in our heads? Has the moon moved to be physically closer to the Earth? Um probably not that one- and as you can see in the photo below- it IS an illusion, captured only by our eyes/brains. It's one of my favorite mysteries, and one that has been around as long as we have been looking at the moon (which is a pretty long time).
Moon rise in Seattle- photography can’t capture the moon illusion!
(photo by Shay Stephens January 30, 2002)
The moon will be ginormous tomorrow night. The little squiggly red underline tells me that my spell checker thinks that ginormous is not a word, but according to the Oxford English Dictionary, it has been around since 1948. Back to the point- it will be huge. This is because it is the full moon closest to the summer solstice, which means it will be lower in the sky (because it is opposite the sun and the sun is highest in the sky... you know, the NASA article explains it better). If you have clear skies, be sure to check it out.