Today, I will be discussing the current event of the recently seen Super Moon! According to NASA, "on May 5 at "11:43pm Eastern Daylight Time" the Moon appeared to be "14% bigger and 30% brighter than other full Moons of 2012," this is called a Super Moon. In scientific terms the Super Moon is called a Perigee Moon. Due to the elliptical orbit of the Moon, it is closer to the Earth at some points in time compared to other points in time. Perigee is the side of the Moon's orbit where the moon is "50,000km closer than" it is at apogee, the other side of the Moon's orbit.
A Super Moon occurs annually but the date changes depending on the phase of the Moon, and the orbit of the Moon, Earth, and Sun. Last year the Super Moon appeared on March 19 and was considered to be the largest Super Moon in 20 years. In comparison with the Super Moon seen on May 5, 2012, the March 19, 2011 Super Moon "was almost 400km closer than this one."
The May 5th Super Moon was seen all around the world, here is a collection of some photographs within a news article that capture the haunting beauty of the Super Moon. All the science talk aside, the Super Moon is awe-inspiring and breathtaking. I had the opportunity to witness it myself on the evening of May 5th but unfortunately I was without my camera.
In order to fully understand the beauty and the science behind the Super Moon, I urge you to follow the link to an informative video put together by ScienceAtNASA.
I noticed this last week!
ReplyDeleteIt was really amazing and beautiful to see the Moon that close. I took a picture of it with my phone but it did not turn out very well at all. Very cool to see some good quality pictures of it. I wish the Moon appeared to us like that every night!