In 1977, the world was imbued with many lessons thanks to Star Wars — one of those being to look twice and make sure a moon really is a moon, and not a space station. Well, NASA’s November 14 Astronomy Picture of the Day selection gifts us with a moon and a space station. The image presents a composite of the International Space Station in transit across the face of the first of this fall’s three consecutive supermoons. In addition to just being a pretty rad image of the moon itself, the ISS looks exactly like an Imperial TIE fighter.
Monday’s supermoon was essentially so super because its orbit brought it closer to the Earth than it had been in nearly 70 years, meaning it appeared extra bright, and in some places extra large, in the night sky. That supermoon got all the attention, but this October supermoon still provided a pretty decent backdrop for 10 sequential, stitched-together images of the ISS looking like a squadron of resistance pilots coming around a very shiny Death Star (or Endor, we’re cool with you using whatever fictional celestial object works best for you as long as it’s not from the prequels).
To enjoy the rest of this post more fully, I submit that you get some headphones (or not, you monster) and play these “pew pew pew” sounds in the background. I will wait.
"That's no moon..." except it actually is, sorry, don't act like you haven't had a long week, too.
A lunar cartographer snapped the transit from Dallas, Texas. The third and final 2016 supermoon will occur on December 14, and, though it won’t be as bright as the second one, we can hope that it will gift us with images that make it as cool as the first. Perhaps a silhouette of some random Lockheed Martin satellite as the Imperial Star Destroyer or something.
