Could the lunar phenomenon known as a "supermoon" be responsible for the recent devastating earthquakes in New Zealand and Japan? INSIDE EDITION explores supermoons.
Could the phenomenon known as a "supermoon" be responsible for the devastating earthquake that rocked Japan?
It's a theory quickly spreading across the internet.
Next week the moon will be closer to Earth than it has been at any other time in 19 years. The phenomenon is called a supermoon. The moon will appear 14 percent larger and significantly brighter than the normal full moon.
Some scientists claim the supermoon is wreaking havoc on our planet and may be behind the recent earthquakes in New Zealand and Japan.
The tsunami that struck Indonesia in 2005 occurred two weeks before a supermoon, and in 1992 the 7.3 earthquake in Southern California also coincided with a supermoon.
Neil Tyson is an astrophysicist at New York City's American Museum of Natural History. He tells INSIDE EDITION that the earthquakes have nothing to do with what the moon is doing.
"We get earthquakes all the time. The fact that we can't yet predict earthquakes with accuracy leads people to reach, grab into the sky for forces that they want to blame a catastrophe on," he says.
