Look! Up in the sky today! It's Super Moon!
If the full moon tonight looks a little bigger, your eyes are not deceiving you. Weather permitting, Inland sky gazers will see a perigee moon -- nearly at its closest point to Earth in the oval lunar orbit. There's the added attraction of coinciding with the moon's full phase, a combination that happens about every 18 years.
The closest point of the moon to Earth will actually occur about four hours earlier than moonrise for this area, said Chris Clarke, San Bernardino Valley College planetarium specialist.
NASA says this will be the largest perigee full moon since March 1993, and will appear about 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than when the moon is at the apogee, or farthest point, of its orbit.
Tonight's full moon will be a little short of perfect perigee.
"To the trained naked eye, the full moon will look a bit bigger," Clarke said.
"It's 221,000 miles at perigee versus 252,000 at apogee."
He said the extra-big rising moon that appears on the horizon "Is the moon illusion. It always looks bigger at moonrise because we are interpreting it against foreground objects," Clarke said. The perigee moon's effect on tides is minor, NASA said. Perigean tides generally amount to about an extra inch over the usual. Local geography can raise that to about six inches in some places, still not a flood threat.
Despite popular lore and Internet rumors, perigee moons, full or otherwise, are not harbingers of disaster.
They are predictable events, Clarke said, and if they brought dangerous tides or earthquakes that could not be dismissed as coincidental, that would be well-documented by now.
"What is rather ordinary -- people are seeing it as extraordinary," Clarke said. "You hate to deflate, but this is the celestial rhythm, the way it runs. But if it gets someone to look at the moon and see something beyond Earth, that's good."
WHY IS THIS FULL MOON SO CLOSE?
The moon has a closest point to Earth every month. Today's full moon falls on the same date as perigee -- the moon's closest point to Earth during a month.
It will be more than 221,000 miles away -- the closest to Earth since March 1993.
Perigee moons are as much as 14 percent wider and 30 percent brighter than lesser full moons
The moon has a closest point to Earth every month. Today's full moon falls on the same date as perigee -- the moon's closest point to Earth during a month.
It will be more than 221,000 miles away -- the closest to Earth since March 1993.
Perigee moons are as much as 14 percent wider and 30 percent brighter than lesser full moons
(info: pe.com)
