[furyofantares]

I don't understand your last comment. I agree that the New Year is arbitrary, but years themselves are quite meaningful and useful. But I don't think the New Year celebration has anything to do with celebrating the concept and understanding of a year. We have added extra non-scientific meaning to it by using it as cultural event of reflection on the past and planning for the future. I think that's in the same category as choosing to look at the moon together and feel a sense of awe.

[dalke]

I'll try again. I'm not concerned about the arbitrariness of the term 'supermoon'. I dislike the meaningless of it. A good term has meaning behind it. The choice of the new year is arbitrary, and has changed over the centuries. We can examine why there is a calendar system, and compare sun-based to moon-based calendar systems. We can understand that the turnover point of the Gregorian or Mayan calendar is arbitrary, and for the more recent calendar systems we know some of the reasons for why they exist.

Similarly, there's an intrinsic difference between a 'nova' and a 'supernova'.

But if you look at 'supermoon', all you get is a number pulled out of a hat.

> I think that's in the same category as choosing to look at the moon together and feel a sense of awe.

Does the awe really come from someone telling you the moon is near perigee? Or from other aspects?

It's a temporal coincidence that the perigee moon now is near the full moon. In another decade, the perigee moon will be around the new moon. Will we be having the same coverage of the topic then? I doubt it.

Perhaps an analogy might help. People choose to believe in a 'Saturn return'. But 'Saturn return' for arbitrary reasons includes the time +/- a couple of Earth years around a full Saturn year. I can still express my dislike for the term and concept even if you are in awe to know that you are one, or two, or even three Saturn years old.

[furyofantares]

Thanks, I understand what you mean about the term itself not conveying information now.

> Does the awe really come from someone telling you the moon is near perigee? Or from other aspects?

Oh, not from that information, no. It comes from going out and looking at the moon, taking pictures, and looking at all the pictures that populate my facebook feed.

[DanBC]

The other problem with the supermoon term is the ridiculous images used to illustrate the articles about supermoons.

In those images the moon is bigger than my fist, and all the features are very clear even though it's a full moon.