Sunday 13 November 2016

Perigee full moon

The reasonably common phenomenon of full Moon coinciding perigee was completely ignored until the media discovered the term 'supermoon' a few years ago, Perigee (minimum distance from Earth) varies between 356400 and 370400 km (average 362600 km) and apogee (maximum distance from Earth) varies between 404000 and 406700 km(average 405400 km), so on average a perigee full Moon will appear 12 percent larger and 25 percent brighter than one occurring at apogee.


However, perigee on 14 November will be the closest one since 1948, and the Moon will appear 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter compared with the smallest apogee full Moon. This still isn't an enormous difference, and prior to the current frenzy over 'supermoons' was only of interest to astronomers. Here in Britain, of course, we are in any case set to see absolutely nothing.

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