Tonight the moon will rise larger and brighter than it has in almost twenty years. It will be a super “perigee moon” when the appearance of the full moon coincides with the passing of the moon closest to the earth.
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“The last full Moon so big and close to Earth occurred in March of 1993,” says Geoff Chester of the US Naval Observatory in Washington DC. “I’d say it’s worth a look.”
Full Moons vary in size because of the oval shape of the Moon’s orbit. It is an ellipse with one side (perigee) about 50,000 km closer to Earth than the other (apogee): diagram. Nearby perigee moons are about 14% bigger and 30% brighter than lesser moons that occur on the apogee side of the Moon’s orbit.
“The full Moon of March 19th occurs less than one hour away from perigee–a near-perfect coincidence1that happens only 18 years or so,” adds Chester.
Saw a startlingly big moon low in the sky (here in the UK) last night and thought ‘that’s a fantastic, big moon’ now we know why.