Professional astronomers watching the sky announced that we would have the experience to remember this month. If you are a skygazer yourself, then February is the month worth spending time and watch the sky to enjoy the supermoon.
Amateur astronomers, like Richard Carrington and Richard Hodgson, became famous before. You never know what’s your destiny, they say.
The Moon, Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter, and Saturn will make a spectacular performance this month. But, like the diva she is, the Moon is expected to be breathtaking. Saturday, February 1st, the Moon became a supermoon. It occasionally dresses up and plays that part.
This time, it did it half-full. The full supermoon representation will occur on March 9th. So, you shouldn’t miss that! If you are not an amateur astronomer, but common people, then some information about the supermoon wouldn’t hurt.
What is a full supermoon?
The scientific name is a perigee-syzygy or a full (or new) Moon around perigee. The perigee is the closest that the Moon comes to the Earth in its elliptic orbit. Because it coincides with perigee, the result is a slightly larger-than-usual apparent size of the lunar disk as viewed from Earth.
While the moon’s surface luminance remains the same because it is closer to the earth, the illuminance is about 30% brighter than at its apogee. This is due to the changes in the amount of light received on Earth in inverse proportion to the distance from the moon.
February’s supermoon, for its part, has an old nickname. Due to the heavy snowing in mid-winter, the Native American tribes of what is now the northern and eastern United States called this moon the Snow Moon. Last year the Snow Moon won the title of the biggest supermoon of the year. Chances are it will be the same this year.
Don’t mind the gossip that a supermoon can cause natural disasters or the claim that they cause geophysical stress. Scientists have refuted the mean criticism. Enjoy the full supermoon of March, as well as the Snow Moon on February 9th!
