Although, one could assume that the following concerns vampires or werewolves, we occupy ourselves with another kind of bite, namely the bite of animals to humans. There is a study of the E.R. department of the Bradford Royal Infirmatory in Bradford, England from 1997–1999. Here, the question, whether animals bite more often at the full moon, has been investigated. 1,621 patients were looked at, who had been treated for animal bites. The majority of affected patients had been bitten by dogs (95.1 %), others by cats (3.4 %), horses (0.8%) and rats (0.7 %). The surprising aspect of this study is, that indeed a significant connections could be detected between the full moon happenings and the animal bites. Hence, this should be the first study, known to us, which provides such a result!
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A probe is an unmanned flying object, which explores space. Different to a satellite, a probe does not circle the Earth but flies to other celestial bodies, which they circle, too, but are then called orbiters. Two of these probes have been on the way to the Moon since 10th September 2011, to take measurements with unprecedented accuracy. The GRAIL lunar probes have reached the orbit of the Moon as planned, at the turn of the year 2011/12 and are now currently at work, until they will shatter on the Moon’s surface. In the meantime, they will have transmitted lots of data back to Earth.
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“Moonwalk” is a dance technique which fakes a forward motion by moving legs and feet, while in reality you are moving backwards. This is how the illusion is created that the floor is pulling away in a gliding motion, underneath the feet of the dancer. No other name can be more closely connected to this move than the name of Michael Jackson (who was born on 29th August 1958 on a full moon). Even though he is not the founder, in this case, one can refer to him as the figurehead. The key moment was Jackson’s performance of “Billie Jean” at the anniversary celebration “Motown 25: Yesterday, Today, Forever” in 1983. From this moment on, the moonwalk’s triumph was not to be stopped and Michael Jackson had shaped his signature move.
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Just recently, NASA found out, during an examination of video material, that a relatively large explosion took place on the Moon on 17th March 2013, caused by the impact of a meteoroid. This was an approximately 15 inches large and 88 pounds heavy chunk, which hit the Moon’s surface with 56,000 mph. The explosive power is equivalent to 5 tons of TNT. The flash of light which lit up during the impact in the »Mare Imbrium«, was so bright that it was visible with the naked eye from Earth.
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»The Woman of the Apocalypse« is a depiction of a Virgin Mary that is surrounded by sunrays (hence she is also called sun-crowned Madonna), and shows a moon crescent underneath her feet. Quite often stars can also be seen around her head. This portrait goes back to the biblical text »The Woman and the Dragon« in the Revelation of John, chapter 12. This describes the fight of heaven against the red dragon that embodies the evil in the world.
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Japan has a custom, which is called “Tsukimi” or also “Otsukimi” that literally means “moon-viewing” (tsuki = jap. Moon). This tradition dates back to the Heian period (794–1192) where Japanese culture and the arts were refined to a high degree. At that time, elements of the Chinese “Mid-Autumn Moon Festival” were introduced in Japan, and festivals and rituals were held in the eighth sun month (which corresponds to September in our current calendar).
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Inspired by his trip to the coast of Maine, USA, the American artist and lithographer Fitz Hugh Lane (1804–1865) – aka Fitz Henry Lane – created the full moon painting »Fishing Party«, in 1855. He was a representative of the American luminism, a painting style characterized by a specific form of light-flooded landscapes in the 19th century (lumen = lat. light).
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One obviously has the night sky before one’s eyes when thinking of the full moon. In reality, however, the event »full moon« has nothing to do with the fact whether it is night or day for us. The full moon occurs when Sun – Earth – Moon form a line in space and exactly in this order. The Earth lies in fact between the Sun and the Moon. Depending on what time this happens, it is night on the hemisphere that is turned away from the Sun and you can see the Moon in the sky. But on the hemisphere that is turned towards the sun it is daytime at this point and the full moon cannot be seen, because when observed from this position it is actually behind the Earth.
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The American astronaut David Scott (* 1932) conducted an interesting experiment on the Moon, toward the end of the Apollo 15 mission in July/August 1971. In front of a running camera, he dropped a hammer (2.9 lb) and a falcon’s feather (0.06 lb), just to prove Galileo Galileis’ (1564–1641) thesis that objects fall to the ground with the same speed, regardless of their mass, provided the air resistance does not slow them down, as it is the case on Earth. On our planet, this experiment could only be demonstrated in a vacuum.
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As is generally known, the moonlight is actually sunlight reflecting from the surface of the Moon and reaching us here on Earth. You ask yourself the question, whether the moonlight may have a different colour than the sunlight, especially since a nightly scenery usually appears to be bluish. Also movie scenes, are portrayed in blue and so are many pictures and photographs. We would like to forestall the answer: the moonlight is nearly white. The night appears blue due to other reasons.
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