As everyone is so busy with the coronavirus pandemic right now, so many things that are going on have been missed by many of us. For instance, the fact the we have had three supermoons so far — March 9, April 7-8 and May 7, 2020 — and we have three more to go this year — September 17, October 16 and November 15, 2020.

Yes, supermoon-o-mania!

No, the moon doesn’t change its size, it just looks bigger to us from earth and this only happens in some full moons and not all. Let’s see what is a supermoon.

The moon’s orbit around the Earth is egg-shaped, sometimes during the month-long lunar cycle the moon is at its shortest distance from Earth, at other times, it’s farthest away. If the moon is full at the same time it’s very close to Earth, you see a supermoon.

A supermoon can appear up to 14 percent larger and 30 percent brighter than a full moon.

The word supermoon was coined by astrologer Richard Nolle in 1979, and according to his definition, a full moon or new moon has to come within 90 percent of its closest approach to Earth to be dubbed a supermoon. In other words, any full moon or new moon that comes to within 224,865 miles or 361,885 km (or less) of our planet, as measured from the centres of the moon and Earth.

That’s why we can have a number of supermoons in any given year. And when there is a supermoon, it causes larger-than-usual tides near the coast.

By the way, October 16, 2020, will present the closest new moon supermoon of 2020, for it will have the moon’s closest point to Earth in its monthly orbit than any other new moon in 2020, which is about 221,851 miles (356,948 km).

On the other hand, the most distant and smallest full moon of the year will fall on October 31, 2020. Sometimes called a micromoon, it’ll be 252,380 miles (406,166 km) away.

Published in Dawn, Young World, June 20th, 2020