Community Corner

Fullest of the Full For the Year

The moon appears larger at this time of year because it is actually closer to Earth now than any other time.

If you thought the moon looked unusually big Friday night, you were right. It was the biggest full Moon of 2010. Astronomers call it a "perigee Moon," some 14% wider and 30% brighter than lesser full moons of the year, according to Tony Phillips of the National Aeronautics and Space Administration's (NASA) Space Weather Bureau.

"Johannes Kepler explained the phenomenon 400 years ago" Phillips wrote. "The Moon's orbit around Earth is not a circle but an ellipse, with one side 50,000 km closer to Earth than the other. Astronomers call the point of closest approach "perigee," and that is where the Moon was be Friday night through Saturday morning."

Phillips said that an ideal to view this super full moon is just around sunset when the moon is near the eastern horizon. "For reasons not fully understood by psychologists, low-hanging moons look unnaturally large when they beam through foreground objects such as buildings and trees."

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