Eagle-eyed astronomer and author of Slate’s Bad Astronomy blog Phil Plait believes he has uncovered a secret about the Simpsons – their hometown Springfield can’t be in America and must be in the southern hemisphere.
In a recent episode, which featured SpaceX founder Elon Musk as guest star, the night sky gave them away as shown above.
In Plait’s crash course on the phases of the moon he explains how they relate to the time of day and the position of the Moon in the sky.
As he points out, there is only one explanation.
And it’s hard to believe it was just a careless error. The writers of The Simpsons are a notoriously nerdy bunch. At least five of the team have advanced degrees in mathematics, physics or computer science. Simon Singh has even written a book unpacking the myriad throwaway maths gags that litter the hit animation series.
Maybe they need to add an astronomer – or come clean that the family were really Aussies all along.
Originally published by Cosmos as The Moon gives away where the Simpsons live
Bill Condie
Bill Condie is a science journalist based in Adelaide, Australia.
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