If the moon appears so big near the horizon, why does the moon seem so small up in the sky? Answer: the sky. We take our sky for granted, but it’s actually really huge. All that space around the moon makes it appear small, only because it’s surrounded by this immensely vast sky.
Context is very important.
I’m sure most of us know the super-moon only looks bigger because it’s closer to the horizon. The context of things on earth around the moon, make it seem bigger. But those things on earth are really quite small. A horizon line with buildings may seem big to us, those buildings are really quite small. When you fly over earth, those buildings are like ants.
If you see a moon next to these ant-sized buildings, of course the moon is going to appear big.
When see the moon in the middle of a hugely vast sky, it will appear small. Our sky is really REALLY big. We just take for granted how vast our sky is.
This post was inspired by Marco Buscaglia’s Facebook post on the mediocre moon.
