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The full moon will be a blue supermoon, a celestial event that combines two events: a supermoon, when the moon is closest to Earth, and a blue moon, the third of four full moons in a season.
How to see the blue supermoon: According to NASA, the peak will be at 11:26 a.m., but if you’re not careful, you might not even notice the difference tonight.
If you want to see the moon in a large view, you can watch the moon rise or set in your area. The moon will appear larger if you see it rise in the east or set in the west.
You can check the local rise and set times for your area using the US Navy’s lunar rise calendar.
If you miss this supermoon: There are three more supermoons to watch this year. None of them will be blue supermoons, but they will still appear brighter and larger than other full moons.
On Monday night, attentive moon observers may notice a change in the moon – if they look closely enough.
The full moon will be a blue supermoon, a celestial event that combines two events: a supermoon, when the moon is closest to Earth, and a blue moon, the third of four full moons in a season.
This cosmic event usually occurs about every 10 years, but last August also saw a super blue moon. NASA concluded that the moon had met the criteria for this seemingly rare event two years in a row.
How to see the blue supermoon on Monday
According to NASA, the supermoon will peak at 2:26 p.m. EDT on Monday, but if you’re not careful, you may not even notice the difference that night.
“Personally, I can’t tell the difference between a supermoon and a normal moon,” said Fred Espenak, scientist emeritus at NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center. Morning edition“And I’ve been looking at the moon all my life.”
If you want a large view of the moon, you can watch the moon rise or set in your area. The moon will appear larger if you see it rise in the east or set in the west. The larger moon, when combined with foreground objects in your area, will create a “moon illusion” and make the moon appear larger.
You can check the local rise and set times for your area using the US Navy’s lunar rise calendar.
If you want to take a closer look at the moon, you can use a telescope or binoculars. According to NASA, the moon will appear full for three days, but only on Monday will it be a true supermoon.
What makes a moon super? What makes it blue?
Just as the Earth does not orbit the Sun in a perfect circle, the Moon does not orbit the Earth in a perfect circle either. The Moon’s orbit is elliptical, resulting in an oval orbit around our planet. This means that the Moon is sometimes closer to Earth. When the Moon is full and closest to Earth, it is called a supermoon because the Moon appears brighter and larger than normal.
Supermoons occur about three to four times a year. The term was first coined in 1979, but astronomers refer to this phenomenon as a perigee full moon. Perigee is the scientific term for the closest point in the moon’s orbit. The average perigee is about 364,000 kilometers from Earth.
A blue moon is a little less complicated: it has to do with the frequency of the full moon. There are two definitions of blue moons: monthly and seasonal.
A monthly blue moon is when we see two full moons in one month. Monday’s full moon is a seasonal full moon: it is the third full moon in a season with four full moons. A typical season has only three full moons, but in the summer of 2024 there will be four.
Monday’s moon is also known as the Sturgeon Moon, a term that comes from Native Americans who named the August full moon after the fish that could be caught in the Great Lakes and Lake Champlain during this time of summer.
More supermoons this fall
If you don’t see Monday’s blue supermoon, there are still three more supermoons you can see this year. None of them will be blue supermoons, but they will still appear brighter and larger than other full moons.
Next month’s supermoon will be on September 18. It will be a super harvest moon. It’s called the harvest moon because it’s near the autumn equinox: an equinox is when the Earth’s equator is most directly in line with the sun. This supermoon will also experience a partial lunar eclipse.
The next two supermoons will occur on October 17 and November 15.
According to Space.com, the next seasonal blue supermoon will occur in 2032, while the next monthly blue supermoons will occur in 2037.
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Copyright 2024 NPR. For more information, visit npr.org.
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