If you missed seeing the blue supermoon Monday night, get out there Tuesday or Wednesday.
It’ll still be plenty bright for the next few days.
What exactly is a supermoon?
The moon will appear bigger and brighter tonight than the average full moon.
The moon’s orbit around Earth is elliptical, meaning that sometimes it’s closer and sometimes further away.
When the moon is at its closest, it’s referred to as being at its perigee.
Supermoons appear physically larger in the sky and are noticeably brighter than average.
Minimoons are smaller and dimmer than average.NASA saysthat supermoons happen about three to four times a year.
The supermoon is also a seasonal blue moon.
A seasonal blue moon works the same way.
Seasons are approximately three months long so we can typically expect three full moons.
The first full moon of the summertook place on June 22, which was just two days into summer.
Seasonal blue moons happen aboutonce every two or three years.
From there, you’ll be able to view it all night.
Each month has a full moon and a name to go with it.
In June, it’s called the strawberry moon and in July, it’s called the buck moon.
For August, we call it the sturgeon moon.
It’s named after the fish, which is one of the oldest species of wildlife in North America.
At 250 million years old, the sturgeon is often referred to asa living fossil.
It’s also the largest freshwater fish on the entire continent.
How rare is a blue supermoon?
Each event in a vacuum isn’t that rare.
Supermoons happen three to four times a year, while seasonal blue moons happen every 2.5 or so years.
The two happening together, on the other hand, occurs less frequently.
Thelast blue supermoon occurredin Aug. 2023, so we’ve had one two years in a row.
We won’t have another one in 2025 or even 2026.
The next blue supermoon is forecast to occur inMay 2027.
