Supermoon, a very rare event, can be seen on Wednesday evening. It is one of the largest and brightest moon of 2023.
A supermoon is roughly defined as a full moon that is closer to Earth than usual. This makes it appear slightly brighter and larger in the sky.
This will be the second supermoon in August. The first appeared on August 1.
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Another rare event will also be visible in the sky on Wednesday. At sunset, Saturn will be visible as a bright point 5 degrees to the upper right of the moon in the east-southeast sky, according to NASA.
And because it’s a rare event, it can be referred to as a “blue moon.” A blue moon has nothing to do with the color of the moon.
Wednesday’s Supermoon will be the closest full moon of the year 2023, just 357,344 kilometers away. That is more than 100 miles closer than the supermoon of August 1.
The Supermoon will be brightest at 9:30 pm (IST) on Wednesday, and the Blue Supermoon will be brightest around 7:30 am (IST) on August 31.
“About 25 percent of all full moons are supermoons, but only 3 percent of full moons are blue moons,” NASA scientists wrote on the Earth’s Moon website.
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“The time between super blue moons is quite irregular – it can be as long as 20 years – but generally 10 years is the average. The next super blue moons will occur in a pair, in January and March 2037,” said a New York Post report.
The supermoon also sheds 30% more light on Earth compared to the faintest full moon, the report said.
On average, a supermoon occurs every two and a half years.
According to London’s Natural History Museum, the supermoon occurs when the moon is at perigee, its closest distance to Earth, and appears 14% larger than the micromoon, when the moon is in its elliptical orbit away from Earth.
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Updated: August 30, 2023, 8:48 PM IST
