In the Pink

 I am getting pretty frigging annoyed at the various non colours of the moon.  Tonight was supposed to be a pink moon and a super moon into the bargain.  Despite bitter experience looking in vain for blue and orange moons I nevertheless directed an eye skyward in the hopes that the gargantuan lump of rock hulking over our heads would turn an improbable shade of puce.  Naturally I was disappointed.

Seething with rage I stumbled home to try and find some reason for being once again let down by our nearest astronomical neighbour.  The super moon bit is easy to explain.  It happens when a full moon occurs when the Moon is at its closest to Earth.  The Moon does indeed look a bit bigger although you'll need a tape measure and a record of the previous full moon size to really be able to tell the difference.  And in any event apparently the Moon was at its closest twelve hours ago when nobody in this hemisphere was really paying attention. 

The pink moon bit is a little more difficult to explain.  To understand why this moon might be designated pink you have to understand the human tendency to take a perfectly ordinary natural phenomenon and then make up outlandish crap around it.  These stories are passed down from one generation to the next in the hopes that one day they will give astronomers and physicists a much needed snigger when they reflect on the foolishness of their less educated fellows.

Apparently a pink moon is one that turns up in April.  Specifically in April in North America.  It is called a pink moon because a pink type of moss happens to be flowering at the same time.  Somebody should tell these people that correlation doesn't necessarily mean causation.  It appears to have a Native American origin presumably because after a few centuries out on the prairies looking at the same old moon every month you get a bit silly and want to start messing with people's heads.

Whatever the reason I do understand that it might be important in days gone by, when people were closer to nature than they are now, to be able to nail down exactly what sort of moon it was and when.  It was vital for indigenous people to know, for example, when they could tend their midnight gardens without fear of werewolf attack.  All it does now is convince a group of pathetically gullible people (guilty as charged your honour) to stare skyward at a rather dull and lifeless satellite that hasn't changed to any appreciable degree in the last several million years.

And don't get me started on blue moons.  They at least have some trace of basis in reality.  The Moon of course doesn't turn blue but if there is smoke in the sky and the ash particles are within a certain size range they will diffuse sufficient of the red light spectrum to give the moon a bluish tinge.  If anybody understood the previous sentence please explain it to me.*  Nevertheless blue moons are blue in much the same way as greyhounds are blue.  That is, they aren't but people with the desperation which comes from knowing that they have nailed their colours to the mast of a sinking ship insist on referring to them as blue anyway.

I have seen a red moon.  Australia gets a lot of bushfires so the occasional red moon isn't really that surprising. It's still pretty gruesome when it occurs though.  The moon resembles an internal organ swollen to the point of bursting and is definitely an encouragement to get home as soon as possible.  Any werewolves roaming the streets will take one look and book themselves in for an all body waxing (inadvertent moon joke provided free).

So I've had it with the pink moon and I've had it with the super moon.  I've just taken a look online and found out what astronomers actually call the phenomenon looming in the sky above us.  They call it a perigee-syzygy moon.  And there you have a perfect explanation for why we tend to go with terms like super moon instead.

*Not you Dad.