The moon will be full tonight but this isn’t your normal full moon!
It’s a super blue moon.
You hear about this type of moon from time to time but what does it mean? Let’s break it down because this event is actually quite rare.
SUPER MOON
The moon orbits the Earth but not in a perfect circle. There are times when the moon is farther away in the elliptical orbit called apogee. At that point, it’s 253,000 miles away. But on the opposite end of the orbit when it’s closest to Earth, called perigee, the moon is around 226,000 miles away.
It will look up to 14% larger and 30% brighter!
We normally hear about a blue moon when we have two full moons in a calendar month. In 2024, we actually don’t have an occurrence of this. So how is tonight’s full moon a blue moon?
It’s a seasonal blue moon.
Yes, there are two definitions for a blue moon. The more common occurrence is what I talked about above. But a full moon can also be called “blue” when it’s the fourth in a given season. The August full moon is our fourth of the summer season. Thus, it’s a blue moon too.
Summer isn’t over. It actually doesn’t end until Sept. 22.
We’ll have another full moon before then on Sept. 19. The third full moon of four is the one called “blue” thus tonight’s event!
The next time we get a seasonal blue moon isn’t until May 2027. And that’s not also at the same time of a super moon. That won’t happen again until 2037!
