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Two supermoons will appear in August, in a rare astronomical phenomenon that won’t happen again until January 2037.
A supermoon is when the moon appears in the night sky as an oversized and bright sphere because it is closer to Earth than usual.
Tuesday at 7:31 p.m. BST, the so-called Sturgeon supermoon reaches its peak – an excellent photo opportunity for stargazers.
There will be four supermoons in 2023 – starting with the first, on July 3, which provided some stunning photos from London to Istanbul and San Francisco.
This is expected to be followed by two supermoons appearing in the space of a month (August 1 and August 31) – a special event known as a “blue supermoon.”
Two supermoons will appear in August, in a rare astronomical phenomenon that will not occur again for the next 24 years. Pictured is the super moon over Los Angeles last month
A fourth and final supermoon of the year occurs on September 29.
Even some experts get confused by the various terms “full moon,” “supermoon,” and “blue moon,” which have been picked up and criticized over the centuries for not being very scientific.
Most people know that a full moon is simply our moon at 100 percent illumination — when its entire surface catches the sunlight as seen from Earth.
A “supermoon,” on the other hand, is a full moon that appears larger and brighter than a normal full moon.
Supermoons form because the moon orbits the Earth on an “elliptical” path — one that is not perfectly circular.
This means there is a point in its orbit where it is closer to Earth, known as ‘perigee’ (conversely, the farthest point in its orbit is known as apogee and results in a ‘micromoon’).
A supermoon can appear up to 14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter than a normal full moon, depending on the time of year.
Andrew McCarthy, an independent astrophotographer based in Arizona, said the moon will be about 30 percent brighter Tuesday night.
“The difference in size between a supermoon versus a moon at its peak is like the difference between a US Quarter and a Nickel,” he said.
A supermoon occurs when a full moon nearly coincides with perigee — the point in the moon’s orbit at which it is closest to Earth
There are four supermoons in 2023 – July 3, August 1, August 31, and September 29. Pictured is last month’s supermoon over St Michael’s Mount, Cornwall
A supermoon is also a full moon by nature, but not every full moon is a supermoon (usually there are only three or four supermoons per year).
So how about a blue moon?
Because a full moon occurs once every 29.5 days – just under a month – sometimes two full moons occur in a calendar month.
This rare astronomical event known as a “blue moon” normally occurs about every two or three years – hence the phrase “once in a blue moon.”
However, the odds of two full moons in one month being “super” are even smaller.
The last time there were two supermoons in one month was in January 2018 — and it won’t happen again until January 31, 2037, according to NASA.
Tuesday’s supermoon will be 360,000 kilometers from Earth, while August 31’s will be even closer — 222,043 kilometers — and therefore more spectacular.
Skygazers won’t be able to miss the moon as it will cover much of the sky, though fans will hope for a clear night with no clouds.
July’s supermoon rises over St Mary’s Lighthouse in Whitley Bay on England’s north east coast
A commercial jet flies northwest over Lake Michigan for the July 2023 supermoon, the first of four supermoons in 2023
The giant moon as it rises and sets in the village of Deir Ballout, northwest Syria, on July 4, 2023
When the full moon appears, it is nicknamed depending on the month of the year – a tradition that goes back hundreds of years.
So January is the Wolf Moon, February is the Snow Moon, March is the Worm Moon, April is the Pink Moon, May is the Flower Moon and so on.
The August full moon is known as the Sturgeon Moon – named after the large fish that were easy to catch at this time of year.
Sometimes the full moon appears to take on different colors or huesalthough this is a trick of the light and mostly depends on how low it is on the horizon.
“A red or yellow colored moon usually indicates a moon that can be seen close to the horizon,” says NASA.
“There, some of the blue light has been scattered by a long path through the Earth’s atmosphere, sometimes laden with fine dust.
“A blue-colored moon is rarer and may indicate a moon seen through an atmosphere with larger dust particles.”