Most “super” supermoon of 2013

Full moon falls on June 23, 2013 at 11:32 UTC. This full moon is not only the closest and largest full moon of the year. It also presents the moon’s closest encounter with Earth for all of 2013. The moon will not be so close again until August, 2014.

Astronomers call this sort of close full moon a perigee full moon. The word perigee describes the moon’s closest point to Earth for a given month. Two years ago, when the closest and largest full moon fell on March 19, 2011, many used a term we’d never heard before: supermoon. Last year, we heard this term again to describe the year’s closest full moon on May 6, 2012. Now the term supermoon is being used a lot. Last month’s full moon – May 24-25, 2013 – was also a supermoon. But the June full moon is even more super! In other words, the time of full moon falls even closer to the time of perigee, the moon’s closest point to Earth. The crest of the moon’s full phase in June 2013, and perigee, fall within an hour of each other.

 Did you know?

- the tides will be higher/lower at perigee

- an astrologer came up with the term supermoon

- each full moon has a name
- this month is know as Rose Moon, Flower Moon or Strawberry Moon in the Northern Hemisphere




More here. Thanks to EarthSky News.