For some reason, I only found out yesterday that the moon doesn’t actually get bigger when it’s near the horizon. Apparently, it’s all part of something called the Moon Illusion – a clever trick your brain plays on you!

The Brain’s Optical Trick

When the moon is near the horizon, your brain compares it to familiar things like trees, buildings, or mountains. This makes the moon seem huge in comparison. But when the moon is higher up in the sky, there’s nothing nearby to compare it to, so it looks a lot smaller. Basically, your brain is misjudging the moon’s size because it’s bad at eyeballing.

How to See Through the Illusion

Here’s a way of proving the illusion. if you look at the moon through a small hole made by your hand or a piece of paper, you’ll block out the surrounding landscape and realise the moon hasn’t changed size at all. The whole thing is just a mind trick. You can also bend over and look through your legs and watch the moon shrink, but only if you are young enough or good at yoga.

So it turns out, the moon is great at playing with our perception – strange what the mind can do with objects to create something that doesn’t exist.