Why does the moon appear orange or red?
January 25, 2019
Who does the moon belong to?
January 25, 2019
Show all

Why does the moon look bigger at times?

The moon will look larger when it’s closer to the horizon, where trees, hills, and houses give it some perspective. (During occasional ‘’supermoon’’ events, the moon looks slightly larger because it’s at its closest point to Earth in its oval-shaped orbit.)

Humans tend to mentally exaggerate the size of the Moon with respect to the surrounding objects when it is on the horizon. This is because, unlike other everyday objects in the sky—airplanes and birds—humans have no context to determine the size of celestial objects. According to one psychological explanation of the Moon Illusion, this can force people to believe that the Moon is bigger when compared to the objects at the horizon like trees and buildings. This is similar to the Ebbinghaus illusion, which shows that when a circle is surrounded by larger circles, it looks smaller than when it is surrounded by smaller circles.

 

Picture Credit : Google

Comments are closed.