Have you seen this beautiful image?

Captioned “Sunset at the North Pole,” it’s been getting email mileage on the Internet for several years. I saw it again last month when a friend forwarded it to me.

The accompanying text said:

Frequently described in email as a photo of a North Pole sunset, this picture is believed to be digital art entitled "Hideaway," created by Inga Nielsen, a German astrophysics student.

“This is one of the rarest pictures that you will ever see in your life when the moon was closest to the Earth. The date the picture was taken was Thursday, 13th May, 2011. This is the sunset at the North Pole with the moon at its closest point. A scene you will probably never get to see in person, so take a moment and enjoy. And, you also see the sun below the moon, an amazing photo and not one easily duplicated.”

The author of the text was purported to be a “lecturer of library and information science” affiliated with two prominent universities.

But as pretty as the image is and as authoritative as the source might sound, it is simply another of the countless Internet hoaxes. Remember when Mars was supposed to look as large as a full Moon?

There are so many problems with this North Pole sunset email it’s hard to know where to begin debunking it.

For starters, May 13, 2011, was a Friday, not a Thursday, but that’s being picky.

More substantive is the fact that the photo shows the Moon at or very near the new Moon, when the Moon passes between Earth and the Sun. The Moon was new Tuesday, May 3, so maybe the lecturer meant May 3 rather than May 13?

But there’s a problem with May 3. If the Moon was “closest to Earth” as claimed, the photo had to have been taken May 16, when the Moon was at perigee — the point in its monthly elliptical orbit when it swings nearest Earth.

Moon at perigee

And at perigee, the Moon does actually appear larger than average — although only slightly.

There’s an even bigger problem with May 16 as the Moon wasn’t even visible from the North Pole when it was nearest Earth at perigee. It dipped below the horizon May 12, quite some distance from the Sun, and didn’t reappear until May 26 — thus no one could have even seen, much less photographed, it on May 13 or 16 from the North Pole.

And for yet another stake in the heart of this Internet hoax: From the March equinox to September equinox, there is no “sunset at the North Pole.”

In this “land of the midnight Sun,” the Sun is constantly in the sky day and night, without rising or setting for half a year. In May, it hovers some 18 degrees above the horizon as it circles the horizon each day.

Regarding their relative sizes, the Moon and Sun always appear virtually the same size — about  1/2 degree, a space easily covered with the end of a finger held at arm’s length. This derives from the fact that the Sun is 400 times more distant than the Moon and, by coincidence, 400 times larger.

And while the apparent relative sizes of the Sun and Moon do vary, owing to the Earth’s elliptical orbit around the Sun and the Moon’s elliptical orbit around Earth, the variance is slight and barely noticeable to the casual observer.

All questionable dates and other factors aside, never at any time or season or from any location on Earth does the Moon appear notably larger (or smaller) than the Sun — and certainly not some 40 times larger as this image indicates.

Serving a purpose

So maybe seeing isn’t always believing after all. But such hoaxes do serve a purpose. They remind us of the importance of maintaining a healthy degree of skepticism and keeping our skills of critical inquiry ever at the ready, whether watching TV or reading emails, newspapers, or even this column.

The website at www.snopes.com is an excellent source for checking the accuracy of Internet claims. It’s usually the first place I turn when anything pushes my skepticism button.

According to snopes, this “photograph” is believed to be a digital image entitled “Hideaway” created by Inga Nielsen, a German astrophysics student using scenery generating software.

There is no indication that Nielsen perpetrated this hoax; more likely, someone else misused the creative artwork.

Paul Derrick is an amateur astronomer who resides in Waco. His website at www.stargazerpaul.com contains an archive of past Stargazer columns, a schedule of his upcoming programs, star parties and classes, and other basic stargazing information. Contact him at paulderrickwaco@aol.com or 254-723-6346.