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In October, the largest full moon of the year appears in the sky – a supermoon. What’s behind it and how you observe the celestial phenomenon.
Frankfurt – When the next full moon shines from the sky on October 17th, stargazers will see another supermoon. It is the closest full moon to Earth in 2024 – at 357,175 kilometers from Earth, it comes even closer to the blue planet than the supermoon in September. He was involved in a partial lunar eclipse.
But what is a supermoon actually? The term is not entirely without controversy, as Björn Voss also emphasizes. The astrophysicist is director of the Hamburg Planetarium and says: “The term ‘supermoon’ is not an astronomical term, but is often used in colloquial language.” In fact, the “supermoon” originally comes from astrology, which is why it is not often used in astronomy . “We are talking about when the moon reaches its full moon position at perigee, i.e. close to the earth,” explains Voss.
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October’s supermoon is the largest full moon of the year
Even if astronomy doesn’t like to talk about the “supermoon”, there is a lot to be said about the phenomenon in astronomical terms: The supermoon is the opposite of the minimoon – a full moon at a distance from Earth. The distances between the Earth and the Moon vary between 406,000 and 356,000 kilometers because the Moon’s orbit around the Earth is elliptical.
“However, the differences in size and brightness are not particularly dramatic due to the small distance,” says Voss. “A ‘supermoon’ appears about 7 percent larger and 15 percent brighter than an average full moon. Compared to a ‘mini moon’, it is around 14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter.”
You can hardly tell from the sky that the supermoon is bigger
It’s difficult to see this difference in the sky because you can’t see a “normal-sized” full moon in the sky for comparison. If the supermoon is supported by the phenomenon of the lunar illusion, it can appear significantly larger – especially when it is low in the sky. If you want to see for yourself, you should look to the sky on the evening of October 17, 2024. The full moon rises in the east around 6 p.m. and remains in the sky throughout the night.
The supermoon is in the sky. If it is supported by the lunar illusion, it appears significantly larger. (Archive image) © Davide Pischettola/Imago
Strictly speaking, everything is already over at this time: the moon has already reached its full moon position at 1:26 p.m., so it is already decreasing slightly again – but this cannot be seen with the naked eye. And even the shortest distance between the Earth and the moon will be history by the time the moon rises on October 17th. Strictly speaking, the moon had already reached this point the night before.
When you can see the supermoon in the sky
If you actually want to see the supermoon with the shortest distance in the sky, you have to look at the sky on the night of October 16th to 17th. At 2:51 a.m. the not yet full moon reaches its closest point to Earth, becoming the proverbial supermoon. And that can be an impressive sight – regardless of whether you want to call the full moon near Earth a supermoon or not. (tab)
