A supermoon will grace the skies Monday night, creating an image that won’t occur again for years. The moon may look unusually large, but it is just closer to earth, about 30,000 miles than it typically is.
At 6:22 a.m. EST on Monday, the moon will be at its closest orbital approach to earth, also referred to as perigee, NASA reported Wednesday. By 8:52 a.m. EST, the moon will be full and appear to be at its largest.
People can also view the moon Sunday or Monday night. “The difference in distance from one night to the next will be very subtle, so if it’s cloudy on Sunday, go out on Monday. Any time after sunset should be fine. Since the moon is full, it’ll rise at nearly the same time as sunset, so I’d suggest that you head outside after sunset, or once it’s dark and the moon is a bit higher in the sky,” Noah Petro, the deputy project scientist of the Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission at NASA, said.
A moon can be identified as a “supermoon” if it is up to 14 percent bigger and appears 30 percent brighter when it is at its farthest point in orbit. The moon’s orbit around the earth varies, at times it can be closer and at times it can be further because it is slightly elliptical.
“This [supermoon] is more a technicality than an intense scientific interest,” MIT planetary scientist Richard Binzel said. “But anything that gets people interested to look up and notice the night sky and ponder the universe is a good thing.”
The next time anyone will be able to see a supermoon like the one that is expected to appear on Monday is on Nov. 25, 2034.
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http://www.nasa.gov/feature/goddard/2016/novembers-spectacular-supermoon
http://svs.gsfc.nasa.gov/12404
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