How to Watch Tonight ’ s Supermoon —and Why It ’ s So Special

The sturgeon living in the Great Lakes don’t have a lot to do with the moon—or at least they didn’t until the Algonquin Native American tribe came along. The Algonquins discovered that sturgeon were most plentiful in the lakes in August, and so they paid a small tribute to that fact. When a full moon appeared in the sky in that month, they dubbed it a sturgeon moon. But it wasn’t just any full moon that would earn the honorific. It had to be a so-called supermoon—one of which will occur today, Aug. 1.
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Supermoons are striking cosmic spectacles, and they occur because of the nature of the moon’s orbit around the Earth. On average, the moon is 384,400 km (238,855 mi.) from Earth—but that number changes. The moon’s orbit is not circular, but elliptical. At its closest approach, or perigee, it is 363,300 km (226,000 mi.) from us; at its furthest remove, its orbit carries it 405,500 km (253,000 mi.) away. A supermoon occurs when two things coincide: the moon is full, and it’s also at perigee. Together, those factors make the moon appear 30% brighter and 14% larger than it usually does. The spectacle is greatest when the moon is close to the horizon as opposed to high overhead, because, in a bit of cosmic optical illusion, its proximity to smaller surface features like houses and trees makes it appear bigger still.

The U.S. will not be the best place from which to see today̵...

Source: TIME: Science - August 1, 2023 Category: Science Authors: Jeffrey Kluger Tags: Uncategorized healthscienceclimate Source Type: news