2024-08-20 22:04:09
The first of the four supermoons for 2024 will rise today, August 19, reaching peak brightness at 9:25 p.m. Bulgarian time.
August’s full moon is a supermoon — the result of the moon’s monthly orbit around Earth not being a perfect circle, National Geographic points out. Each month, the moon reaches its closest point to Earth, known as perigee. When perigee coincides with a full moon, it’s a supermoon A supermoon usually only happens three or four times a year, and in succession, because of the moon’s ever-shifting oval orbit.
And since the first Supermoon of the year will also be a Sturgeon Moon, it will look bigger and brighter than the full moons we’ve seen so far.
This year’s “Sturgeon Moon,” named after the prolific North American sturgeon family found in the Great Lakes at this time of year, is also a “Blue Moon” due to an astronomical quirk.
There are two types of blue moons: a monthly blue moon (the second full moon in a month) and a seasonal blue moon (the third of four full moons in the same astronomical season). Since the summer solstice, there have been full moons on June 22 and July 21. The “sturgeon moon” on August 19 will be the third, and together with the full moon after it – on September 18 – they will all occur before the autumnal equinox on September 22.
Blue moons of each type occur once every two to three years, according to NASA. The last seasonal blue moons were in October 2020 and August 2021, and the next seasonal blue moon will occur in May 2027, bTV reports.
To enjoy the celestial scene during these days, you won’t need binoculars and telescopes, but they would help reveal details on the lunar surface that are not visible to the naked eye.