Super Moon Rises This Weekend

The largest Full Moon of this year, a so-called "Super Moon," will light up the night sky this weekend, but there's more to this lunar delight than meets the eye. Sunday morning, June 23, at 7 o'clock Eastern Daylight Time, the Moon will arrive at perigee, which is the point in its orbit which brings it closest to Earth at a distance of 221,824 miles. The Moon typically reaches perigee once each month, with its respective distance to Earth varying by three percent.

However, Sunday's lunar perigee will be the Moon's closest to Earth of 2013. Just 32 minutes later, the Moon officially will be full. The close timing of the Moon's perigee and its full phase will bring about the biggest Full Moon of the year, a celestial event popularly defined by some as the Super Moon.

As the Moon orbits the Earth, it slowly changes its distance from us. It varies from about 252,000 miles at its farthest to around 220,500 miles at its closest. The Moon’s distance changes very slowly. In fact, it's impossible to tell the difference from night-to-night. However, if you compare this weekend's Super Moon to the farthest Full Moon, which happens on January 15, 2014, the difference is dramatic.

The Super Moon is over 31,000 miles closer, appears 14% larger in diameter, and 30% larger in surface area than next January's Full Moon. The best time to see the Super Moon is just as it rises. Keep looking because as the Sun sets, the Full Moon will rise. The Moon always looks larger near the horizon, but that’s merely an illusion.

Technically, the Moon will be more than 1,000 miles closer around 1:30 a.m. on Sunday morning when it will be higher in the South. That would be the "Super-est Moon."  Since the changing Moon distance is a slow process, Sunday night's viewing will provide an encore. The Full Moon rising Sunday evening, June 23, will be less than one percent farther than that of June 22.

It is also known as the Full Strawberry Moon this month. The name was was universal to every Algonquin tribe. However, in Europe they called it the Rose Moon. The relatively short season for harvesting strawberries comes each year during the month of June, so the Full Moon that occurs during that month was christened for the strawberry!

Paul