SUPER START: The year 2018 started in dramatic fashion, with the year's biggest Super Moon.
"Super moons" occur when a full moon coincides with the moon's perigee, or the point at which its orbit is closest to Earth. When that happens, the moon appears 14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter than a normal full moon - pretty dramatic!
We noticed the Super Moon when we were driving about on January 2. From our vantage point it looked like what I call an Apollo moon - very black and white. Not a hit of harvest gold or any other color.
For the record, it also happened to be a "Wolf Moon," because it was the first new moon of the year. It's named after the howling of wolves during a full moon.
BACK IN THE DAY: It was on this day (Jan. 3) in 1962 that the newly-announced Mercury Mark II project was renamed Project Gemini.
Check out this cool artist's concept of a two-person Gemini spacecraft in flight, complete with a cutaway view.
Per a NASA press release, "Gemini paved the way for Apollo, and had four main goals: to test an astronaut's ability to fly long-duration missions (up to two weeks in space); to understand how spacecraft could rendezvous and dock in orbit around the Earth and the Moon; to perfect re-entry and landing methods; and to further understand the effects of longer space flights on astronauts."
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