Remember the Nice Things We Dont Have Anymore. There Will Be One In the Sky Tonight.

[babylonsister]

http://www.motherjones.com/environment/2017/12/climatedesk-supermoon-remember-the-nice-things-we-dont-have-anymore-there-will-be-one-in-the-sky-tonight/

Remember the Nice Things We Don’t Have Anymore. There Will Be One In the Sky Tonight.
Neel V. Patel
Dec. 2, 2017 6:00 AM


Supermoon over Arizona in 2016
Rex Features via AP Images


A full moon might come around once every 30 days, but a supermoon—when the full moon appears bigger and brighter than ever before—is a much rarer celestial spectacle. Like Thanksgiving dinner or resolutions to give up social media, supermoons only happen once, maybe twice a year. This year will see just one supermoon, and you’ll need to play your cards right this weekend for a chance to see it.

A supermoon is essentially a collision of two astronomic phenomena: the perigee and the syzygy. The moon’s distance from the Earth naturally fluctuates as it orbits. When it gets to its shortest distance, that’s called the perigee—it’s about 225,000 thousand miles away and 16,500 miles closer than usual. As the moon orbits around the sun and Earth orbits the sun, phases of the moon are intermittently created. The alignment between Earth, moon, and sun that creates full moons (or new moons) is called syzygy.

When the perigee occurs at the same time as a full moon, we get a “perigee syzygy”—colloquially known as a supermoon. When this happens, the moon appears up to 15 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than it usually does.

The last supermooon to hit the night skies was over a year ago, and it was closer to Earth than it’s been since 1948. It won’t be that close until 2034—this year’s supermoon, occurring on Dec. 3, which is Sunday night, will be a bit more muted: only about 7 percent bigger and 16 percent brighter. Depending on how much of an aficionado you are of lunar events, you might not really be that interested. Truth be told, many people can’t normally differentiate a supermoon from a run-of-the-mill full moon. If you want to really soak in the supermoon this year, you’re going to have to watch it the right way: like a space nerd.

snip//

Normally this is the part where I might tell you how to find the moon using a night sky smartphone app, but if you already have problems spotting the moon, you might just want to stay inside and forget about the supermoon entirely.

For the rest of you, happy viewing!

[oasis]

1. Thanks for the "heads up".

[Guilded Lilly]

2. Look up! Experience the marvel.

[mrsadm]

3. Someone please post pictures!

I'd love to see it but where I live there is a completely cloudy sky predicted for this evening.

[muriel_volestrangler]

8. Pictures won't look any different from normal

You can get a 16% brighter picture just by taking a 16% longer exposure. And you'll have nothing in someone else's picture to measure the 7% bigger size against - it'd be hard enough for you to notice that even if you saw it against a horizon you were totally familiar with.

[TexasBushwhacker]

4. It looks biggest when it's near the horizon n/t

[Towlie]

5. Totally boring to anyone who watched the solar eclipse 4 months ago!

... and I was right on the centerline of totality.

[Thor_MN]

6. As usual for astronomic events, the forecast is rain.

Actually rain turning to snow.

The clouds during the solar eclipse weren't all bad, one could see the eclipse through the clouds with no equipment.

[malaise]

7. Was watching cricket from OZ earlier

and it sure is beautiful - will watch tonight - it should be clear here in JA.

[Blue_true]

9. In about 2 billion years, there will be super moons every month.

The moon should ultimately crash into the earth, as one of Mars moons is headed toward for that planet.

But we won't have to worry about that, the run of humans on earth would have likely ended hundreds of millions of years before super moons happen every month until they start happening every day, until, BOOOOMMM!!!!!'