Biggest Supermoon of 2013. Only two days after the Summer Solstice, in the early morning hours of Sunday, June 23, the moon will officially reach its full phase and will be the closest (356,990 kilometers or 221,823 miles) and largest ‘supermoon’ of the year. The moon’s orbit is egg-shaped, and there are times when it is at perigee—its shortest distance from Earth in the roughly month-long lunar cycle—or at apogee, its farthest distance from Earth. If the full moon phase happens to be at the same time as the perigee then we get a supermoon, which happens once a year. Despite all the media hype in recent years, the difference in size of the lunar disk from ‘average’ full moons will be so negligible that most moon gazers will not notice anything amiss. Still, there is nothing quite as magical as watching that giant silvery orb rising in the east after sunset. newswatch.nationalgeographic/2013/06/17/5-sky-events-this-week-lord-of-the-rings-meets-luna-solstice-supermoon/
Posted on: Fri, 21 Jun 2013 18:40:05 +0000
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