supermoon

thumb|alt=refer to caption|A juxtaposition of the apparent diameters of a more-average full moon on December 20, 2010 (left), and of the supermoon of March 19, 2011 (right) as viewed from Earth

AI overview

A supermoon occurs when a full moon happens at the point in its orbit closest to Earth, making it appear noticeably larger and brighter in the sky than an average full moon. While supermoons are a visually striking natural phenomenon, their practical effects on Earth are minimal, though they may have a slight influence on tides.

AI-generated from the Wikipedia summary — may contain errors.

~9 min read

Encyclopedic overview

10 sections

Contents

Definitions
Occurrence
Appearance
Effects on Earth
Super Blood Moon
Annular solar eclipses
See also
Notes
References
External links

thumb|alt=refer to caption|A juxtaposition of the apparent diameters of a more-average full moon on December 20, 2010 (left), and of the supermoon of March 19, 2011 (right) as viewed from Earth

A supermoon is a full moon or a new moon that nearly coincides with perigee—the closest that the Moon comes to the Earth in its orbit—resulting in a slightly larger-than-usual apparent size of the lunardisk as viewed from Earth. The technical name is a perigee syzygy (of the Earth–Moon–Sun system) or a full (ornew) Moon around perigee. Because the term supermoon is astrological in origin, it has no precise astronomical definition.

Excerpted from Wikipedia’s “supermoon” article, available under the CC BY-SA 4.0 licence.