This weekend, our 1st weekend of summer will bring
us a Super Moon or Super Full Moon.
What exactly is a “supermoon” or a “super full moon” Regular full moons vary in size because of the oval shape of the moon’s orbit. The orbit around the Earth is an ellipse with one side (perigee) about 31,068 miles (50,000km) closer to Earth than the other (apogee). The supermoon occurs when a full moon occurs at perigee.
On average the moon is about 237,700 miles (382,500 km) from Earth.
Link below is from “March 16, 2011” but gives a good explanation. There is also a lot of other
cool and interesting links on that site to explore as well!
What makes this full moon different?
Perigee moons are about 14% bigger and 30% brighter than the moons that occur on the apogee side of the moon’s orbit. This is due to the moon being closer to the Earth at perigee instead of apogee.
This will be our moon’s closest and largest full moon for all of 2013
So be sure and check out the SuperMoon this weekend.