SAN ANTONIO — Our most recent nights haven't been all that dark, thanks to a full moon that looks much larger than normal. And Monday night will be brighter soon, thanks to the supermoon.
Today at 1:26pm CDT the Supermoon officially became 100 percent full. But it is also called a blue moon. So why does the moon appear so big, and so bright especially when it rises?
Rick Varner, the Scobee Education Center Director told us, "It's not actually larger at that point than when it's higher in the sky. It's just that we have a scale of reference to objects on the horizon. So when you see near buildings and trees and such, it seems larger than it is when it's up amongst the heavens."
A supermoon happens when the moon reaches it's closest point to Earth, about 226,000 miles away. A supermoon will appear 30% brighter than your average full moon, and 14% larger than a typical full moon. But the size doesn't change as it rises, it just appears to.
"You can actually track some of the images where people take the take on exposure across time. And if you measure the disc near the horizon where it seems really big, it's the exact same diameter as it goes up across the sky," Varner added.
There are actually two types of blue moons. Seasonal and Monthly. Monday's supermoon is the monthly kind. That's when there are four full moons in a single season. In this case that is summer. A monthly blue moon is a second full moon in a single calendar month. A term that actually came about from a misunderstanding of the seasonal blue moon.
"This is one that is unique in that it's also a supermoon. So it's a super blue moon," said Varner.
The next full, and monthly blue moon will take place September 17th. Followed by the October 17th full blue moon, which will actually be the closest supermoon of the year.
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