Slashdot Mirror
November 14th Supermoon Will Be Biggest In 68 Years (nationalgeographic.com)
On Monday, November 14th, you may be able to see the biggest and closest supermoon Earth has seen since 1948. A "supermoon" is a full moon that "coincides with the lunar orb's closest approach to Earth, or perigee." National Geographic explains how you can experience one of the best lunar spectacles in decades: This month, the moon officially reaches perigee at 6:21 a.m. ET (11:23 UT) on November 14, when it will be just 221,524 miles from our planet, as measured from the center of both Earth and the moon. The moon reaches its full phase only two and a half hours later, at 8:52 a.m. ET (13:52 UT) on November 14. Earth hasn't been buzzed this close by a full moon since January 26, 1948, when our lunar companion was a mere 30 miles closer than this month's supermoon. Enjoy the sky show while it lasts, because the full moon won't get this close to us again until November 25, 2034. And the absolute closest full moon to Earth this century will occur on December 6, 2052, when our celestial neighbor will be just 221,472 miles away. Globally, the best time to catch this sky event is just after your local sunset on November 14, as the silvery orb rises in the east. For North Americans, the lunar disk will appear to be nearly equally full and impressive on the nights of November 13 and 14, so if you get clouded out on the first night, you'll have another chance to catch the epic sky show. The best view will be in the early morning close to dawn, as the moon sets in the west before the sun rises in the east. By the numbers, the November full moon will appear to be 7 percent larger than average and nearly 15 percent brighter.
The "supermoon" may look slightly larger than the moon normally looks when it's close to the earth (i.e. every two weeks), but not significantly. In particular, it pales in comparison to the psychological effect of viewing the moon low in the sky (when it looks larger, even though it's actually further away) vs high in the sky (when it looks smaller, even though it's actually closer).
...and in other news, Generalissimo Francisco Franco is still dead and water is still wet.
But there's still no reason it should be in the news: regular people wouldn't even notice if it wasn't pointed out to them, and astronomers know it's just a cyclical thing that doesn't mean anything. Imagine if, every spring, the news was full of breathless reports of the upcoming "supersun" which would be much brighter than the "winter sun" and which would stay in the sky for hours longer than the winter sun. That's pretty much the level of amazement we're talking about.