The moon rose full and bright on Sunday evening the textures of its surface clearly visible to the naked eye. Close to the horizon, our near neighbour looks huge, thanks a trick of perception we call the moon illusion. In reality, the moon is no bigger at the horizon than it is high in the sky.
Making its second appearance in the month - the first was on May 1 - it was a blue moon. Not only that, it was a micromoon, rising at its furthest point from the earth, although no one told our brains that because it still looked huge.
Watching it rise, it was hard not to feel awe and wonder and not just at the moon itself. A few days earlier, I'd interviewed someone who stands to get much closer to it than the rest of us earthlings.
