Tonight was supposed to bring forth the Pink Moon, the biggest supermoon of 2020.
Alas, it’s raining buckets. But like the Post Office and coronavirus, we’re not gonna let a little thing like precipitation spoil the genuflecting. So here’s a rain-delay FactSlap (lunar edition):
A full day on the moon, from one sunrise to the next, lasts about 29.5 Earth days on average.
No one has been on the Moon in the last 41 years.
The moon is moving away from us by 1 1/2 inches a year.
It would take less than 6 months to get to the moon by car at 60 mph.
The beautiful symmetry of a total solar eclipse happens because —by pure chance— the sun is 400 times larger than the moon, but is also 400 times farther from Earth, making the two bodies appear the exact same size in the sky.
When Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin landed on the moon, they honored soviet cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin by leaving behind one of his medals.
The moon is not round, but egg-shaped.
If there are two full moons in the same month, the second one is called blue moon.
The American flags placed on the moon are now white due to radiation from the sun.
Sending a man to the Moon and finding Osama Bin Laden cost the US government about the same amount of time and money: 10 years and $100 billion.
Coronadiaries, Episode: VI (Big Earl Remix) Signs O’ the Times:
“I stick my finger in existence — it smells of nothing. Where am I? Who am I? How came I here? What is this thing called the world? What does this world mean? Who is it that has lured me into the world? Why was I not consulted, why not made acquainted with its manners and customs instead of throwing me into the ranks, as if I had been bought by a kidnapper, a dealer in souls? How did I obtain an interest in this big enterprise they call reality? Why should I have an interest in it? Is it not a voluntary concern? And if I am to be compelled to take part in it, where is the director? I should like to make a remark to him. Is there no director? Whither shall I turn with my complaint?”