Check here to see when the Moon will rise in your area: www. When the "enlarged" moon is near the horizon, another way to negate this optical illusion: face away from the moon, then bend over and look at the moon between your legs. Lo and behold, the moon looks its usual size. I have a question about a smiling moon? In the northeast area of US I have been seeing alot of the smiling moon, what is that about?
The crescent moon looks like a smile in the winter and spring and like a backwards "C" in the summer and fall. This is related to the Moon's path, where the Sun is, and how and where it shines on the Moon. I'm sorry. But I think this article is nonsense! Yes, our lens-shaped atmosphere has nothing at all to do with how the moon looks through its convex boundaries. Skip to main content.
By Bob Berman. June 8, Source: The Old Farmer's Almanac. Related Articles Moon Full Moon. Tags Moon Illusion. What do you want to read next?
Sky Map: November Night Sky for July What Makes the Hunter's Moon What Is the Harvest Moon? The researchers saw activations in the same ventral stream areas of the brain in both cases, as compared with control experiments where no illusion was involved.
This isn't firm evidence that the moon illusion can be entirely be explained by this size-distance effect, but it does suggest it's involved. Still, there are plenty of other ideas to explain the moon illusion — and there's a continuing debate among scientists as to which ones are most compelling. One hypothesis notes that much of the time when the moon is on the horizon, it's directly behind much smaller, more detailed objects, like trees or buildings. This causes it to look bigger by comparison.
On the other hand, when it's up in the sky, it's surrounded by a vast expanse of darkness, causing it to look smaller. The sort of effect can be seen in this famous image, called the Ebbinghaus illusion : the orange circle on the right looks bigger, even though both orange circles are the same size.
One problem with this is that the moon illusion can occur even when there aren't smaller objects in front of it — pilots, for instance, report seeing a gigantic moon near the horizon when they're in flight. Even so, this bigger-by-comparison effect could sometimes be a factor that exaggerates a preexisting illusion. Others suggest that the moon illusion might actually be caused by the way our eyes physically focus on objects at various distances.
If our eyes happen to focus on a spot closer than the object in question, it can cause the object to appear smaller a condition known as micropsia. So, for instance, when the moon is high in the sky, there are no nearby objects to serve as cues, telling our eyes where to focus. In that case, our eyes default to what's called a "resting focus," focusing on a spot a few meters away. This causes the moon to appear smaller.
By contrast, when the moon is on the horizon, all the buildings and mountains in front of it remind our eyes to focus farther away, partly eliminating the effect of micropsia and making the moon appear larger by comparison.
Still, Simanek and others argue that this too can only account for a small percentage of the moon illusion. Meanwhile, there are even more possible explanations than the ones listed here, all with various pros and cons. What's most fascinating is that the moon illusion — an optical illusion known for thousands of years, and experienced by millions of people daily — still isn't really understood or properly explained.
Even though Weidner's recent work with MRI suggests the size-distance explanation has some merit, he says that "none of the explanations given so far are complete. Our mission has never been more vital than it is in this moment: to empower through understanding. Financial contributions from our readers are a critical part of supporting our resource-intensive work and help us keep our journalism free for all. Please consider making a contribution to Vox today to help us keep our work free for all.
Cookie banner We use cookies and other tracking technologies to improve your browsing experience on our site, show personalized content and targeted ads, analyze site traffic, and understand where our audiences come from. By choosing I Accept , you consent to our use of cookies and other tracking technologies. The moon illusion: why the moon looks so weirdly huge right near the horizon.
Share this story Share this on Facebook Share this on Twitter Share All sharing options Share All sharing options for: The moon illusion: why the moon looks so weirdly huge right near the horizon. Reddit Pocket Flipboard Email. Dileep Eduri Have you ever noticed that the moon sometimes appears absolutely gigantic when it's right near the horizon?
The moon illusion has baffled people for thousands of years NASA Aristotle believed the Earth's atmosphere magnifies the moon when it's near the horizon, causing it to look bigger — but we've since learned that he was wrong. When the moon is straight above us, we're seeing it from the distance between it and the Earth, but when it's on the horizon, we're looking across an additional radius of the Earth: Not to scale. Bob King So Aristotle was wrong.
A study replicated a very similar illusion in a lab, and found that an object perceived to be larger and farther away shown at left produced a greater area of activation in the brain's visual map than the same object perceived to be closer and smaller shown at right — even though they're the exact same size: Murray et al. Why seeing the moon on the horizon might trick our brains In the years since Aristotle, people have put forth dozens of competing hypotheses.
Damian Adrian "If you estimate the distance between you and the moon as being larger, the brain performs a computation and decides the object must also be larger to fill the same space," says Ralph Weidner , a German neuroscientist who's recently used MRI experiments to study the illusion.
The Moon illusion is the name for this trick our brains play on us. Photographs prove that the Moon is the same width near the horizon as when it's high in the sky, but that's not what we perceive with our eyes.
Thus it's an illusion rooted in the way our brains process visual information. Even though we've been observing it for thousands of years, there's still not a satisfying scientific explanation for exactly why we see it.
Go out on the night of the full moon and find a good spot to watch it rise. It can be breathtaking, eliciting an awestruck "Wow! When we observe the Moon near the horizon, it often looks HUGE — whether it's peeking over the shoulder of a distant mountain, rising out of the sea, hovering behind a cityscape, or looming over a thicket of trees. But here's the thing: it's all in your head.
The Moon's seeming bigness is an actual illusion, rather than an effect of our atmosphere or some other physics. You can prove it for yourself in a variety of ways. Hold up your outstretched index finger next to the Moon.
You'll find that your fingernail and the Moon are about the same size. Or try looking at the Moon through a paper tube, or bend over and look backward between your legs.
When you view it like this, the Moon will be nowhere near as big as it had seemed. Another ironclad way to size-check the Moon is to take a photo when it's near the horizon, and another when it's high in the sky.
If you keep your camera zoom settings the same, you'll find that the Moon is the same width, side to side, in both photos.
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