We have compared the amount of visitors from our full moon pages with the curve of an electrocardiogram (ECG) and came across an astonishing similarity. It almost appears as if the attention that we humans give to full moon would have its own heartbeat …
It is obvious that the interest in full moon can be linked to its rhythm. The average duration of a moon month is approx. 29.5 days, so a little bit more than four weeks and a little bit less than one calendar month. One can safely say, a lot of people are paying attention to the moon at full moon and clearly a lot less so during the other moon phases.
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Who does not know the »moon boots« – these bulky snow boots, which appeared in the 70’s and 80’s and have taken their claim ever since in the winterly fashion scene. The Italian Giancarlo Zanatta designed the shoes, inspired by the moon landing in 1969. Astronauts Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin wore overshoes with wide soles, which provided the formal inspiration for moon boots. Zanatta took immediate care of the production of the shoes with his company called Tecnica, which is run by his son Alberto Zanatta today, and still sells up to 700,000 pair per year.
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“Rupes Recta” is the name for a long line, which is visible on the Moon’s surface. The name derives from Latin and means “straight fault”, but due to its prominent shape, it is also called “Sword of the Moon”.
Rupes Recta is located at the edge of the lunar mare Mare Nubium and is one of the best known escarpments of the Moon. It is more than 60 miles long, with a width of 1–2 miles and a height of around 800 feet.
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In his first solo album »The Dream of the Blue Turtle« from 1985, Sting published the Song »Moon over Bourbon Street«, which is not just about the Moon. He sings about the existence as a vampire, which he had turned into years ago, and which condemned him to follow passers-by in this street, in the moonlight and the pale lamplight …
It is characteristic for this song that it spares the bloody part of the crime and only leaves an indirect description. The word vampire is also not mentioned, however, it is clearly focused on, for example in the following line: »… you’ll never see my shade or hear the sound of my feet …«
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We have already searched and found the word »full moon« in the Bible, but only in two places in the Old Testament (Psalm 81:3–4 and Proverb 7:18–20). This is surprising, because the Last Supper of Jesus and his disciples must have taken place during the full moon, and hence, should have been mentioned in the New Testament.
We have extended our research and have looked for the word »moon« in the Bible. Here too, most passages can be found in the Prophetic books and Psalms of the Old Testament. However, there are also two places in the New Testament in the Gospel of Luke and Mark.
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As is generally known, the Moon is not a disc but a sphere and one could ask the question if we actually get to see different sides of this Moon sphere? The answer is: no! At least this is true for the observer from Earth.
Indeed, we always see one half of the Moon. This is because the Moon is locked into the Earth rotation. This is called »synchronous rotation«. It means that we are never able to see the side of the Moon facing away from us. And until it was possible to photograph the reverse of the Moon with space probes, nobody knew what we would find or how it would look.
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There are probably few painters who made use of the full moon in their paintings as often as Marc Chagall (1887–1985), the French artist of Russian-Jewish descent, who was regarded as »le poète« (the poet) amongst painters, due to his symbolic shapes and colors.
Chagall lived for almost a century and if one can classify his style at all, then it would have to be expressionism. He worked in Russia, France (primarily Paris) and in the US (primarily New York) and was on an inner and outer journey throughout his life.
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Neil Alden Armstrong (1930–2012) was a US American astronaut, who was the first man to set foot on the Moon as the commander of the Apollo 11 mission on 21st July 1969, and hence the first to step on a foreign celestial body. The mission was preceded by a fierce competition about the »reign« of space, between the then super powers USA and Soviet Union, so that the success of Apollo 11 turned out to not only have a historical meaning but also had a political relevance.
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Who does not know the story of Peter Pan, the boy who does not want to grow up. It is already more than 100 years old (premiered as stage play in London in 1904) and has been adapted to countless screen versions. And next to all the imaginative characters, one encounters repeatedly one thing: the full moon.
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Everyone knows that the sun is much larger than the moon and much further away from earth. In this very context lies a fascinating fact: both celestial bodies appear to be of similar size on the firmament, when observed from earth. Which implies that the sun has to be as many times bigger than the moon, as it is further away from the earth than the moon from the earth …
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