The biggest full moon of the year will rise Saturday (May 5) as
Earth’s only satellite swings into its perigee, or closest
approach to Earth. This so-called “supermoon” will appear extra
big and extra bright. In honor of the moon’s big show, we’re
dispelling a few myths about the Earth’s rocky satellite: Myth
1: The Moon Makes Us Crazy The word lunacy traces its roots to
the word “lunar,” and plenty of people, from nurses to police
officers, will tell you that things get wild around the full
moon. But this non-supernatural equivalent of the werewolf myth
doesn’t hold water. A 1985 review of the literature on the
timing of mental illness and the moon found that the folklore
that links the full moon with mental breakdowns, criminal
behavior and other disturbances has no basis in scientific data.
Myth 2: The Supermoon Can Cause Disasters The reason we have
supermoons is because the moon’s orbit is not perfectly
circular. When it swings closer to Earth on its elliptical path,
the moon does exert a bit more of a g