I Lunar versus Solar orbit at solstices

[grisly]

Disclaimer: The questions below were raised by an article that's most definitely pseudoscience. The questions themselves have nothing to do with what makes it "pseudo", though, so don't let that put you off, please. :)​

Quoting from [crackpot link removed by mentor] (I'd advise you only to read it in full if you feel that your eye-rolling musculature is in need of a proper workout...)

[T]he Moon mirrors the movement of the Sun in the sky by rising and setting at the same point on the horizon as the Sun does at opposite solstices. For example, this means the Moon rises at midwinter at the same place the Sun does at midsummer. There is no logical reason why the Moon mimics the Sun in this way and it is only meaningful to a human standing on the Earth.

- Firstly, is this true at all? (Many of the other "facts" are misrepresentations or outright lies.)
- If it is true, is this a significant datum, or simply a natural (though not immediately obvious) result of the fundamental dynamics of the Sun-Earth-Moon system and the perspective from which we observe it?
- If it is significant, is it genuinely "peculiar", as the author would have use believe, or is there a ready explanation for it?
- If it is "peculiar"...

Well, I'll halt my train of thought there for now, and continue it at a later point, in the unlikely event that the answers to the preceding questions all turn out to be "yes".

TIA! :)

 

[Bystander]

No. N/A. N/A. N/A.

 

[Drakkith]

- Firstly, is this true at all?

Nope. The Moon's orbit about the Earth is very complicated and has many perturbations and irregularities. It certainly doesn't rise in exactly the same place in midwinter as the Sun does in midsummer. This can actually be seen just by looking at the period for Lunar nodes, which is about 18.6 years. If the Moon's orbit slowly precesses over time, then its location on the horizon that it rises and sets at will also change. From wiki:

The plane of the lunar orbit precesses in space and hence the lunar nodes precess around the ecliptic, completing a revolution (called a draconic or nodal period, the period of nutation) in 6798.3835 days or 18.612958 years (note that this is not the same length as a saros). The same cycle, measured against an inertial frame of reference such as ICRS (relative to the stars) is 18.599525 years.

See here: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_theory
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lunar_node

Since we don't allow discussions debunking pseudoscience, I'm going to have to lock this thread. Your best bet is just to avoid sites like that altogether. Unless you just want a good laugh, of course.