Tonight begins a series of three “supermoons” in a row. The July full Moon arrives Saturday morning (12 July) at 7:25 am EDT (1125 GMT); that’s about 21 hours before the Moon arrives at the closest point in is orbit to Earth, a mere 358,284 km distant. This combination of circumstances, illustrated in the diagram above, is known as a “perigee moon,” a “perigean full moon,” or — more more commonly in the news media — a “supermoon”. By a quirk of orbital mechanics, the full Moons of summer 2014 (12 July, 10 August, and 9 September) will all be supermoons. Of these, the August full Moon is even closer (356,922 km), making it the closest full Moon of 2014.
There are several popular myths associated with supermoons: they’re much larger and brighter than ordinary full Moons, they can cause earthquakes, they trigger flooding. None, of course, are true. In fact, the difference in apparent angular size and brightness between a supermoon and their more common cousins is so slight as to be not discernible by typical observers.
Still, it’s worth having a look outside over the next two nights to see our nearest neighbor as big, bright, and beautiful as it ever gets.
(Photo credits. Top: the blogger. Bottom: NASA.)
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