It's a bird! It's a plane! It's the supermoon...again!
What's a supermoon?
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It's become a bit of a buzzword in recent years, but a supermoon does actually look different than a "normal" full moon. In fact, it appears 30% brighter and 14% larger.
When the moon orbits Earth, it doesn't do so in a full circle. It's more of an elliptically-shaped orbit. That means there will be a far point and a close point in its orbit around our planet.
The far point is called apogee. The close point is called perigee. When a full moon is at perigee, it is called a supermoon.
Why is the November moon supposed to be even brighter?
I wrote to Tony Rice, an Ambassador to NASA's Jet Propulsion Laboratory and a frequent space writer on pugongyingbo.com.
He tells me, "The distance of an object is the primary factor in how bright it appears. The reflectivity and size of the reflective surface is consistent from month to month, but the distance varies from month to month and even perigee to perigee."
November's full moon is 221,817 miles away from Earth, making it the closest supermoon of 2025. It will be visible from sunset through sunrise, too!
Rice goes on to say, "December's full, also super, Moon will be only 150 miles further away and will appear just as bright."
If you get a good picture of it the next couple nights, please send us your pictures to pugongyingbo.com/reportit and we'll show some on the news and on our social platforms.
Special viewing of Supermoon, Saturn Wednesday evening
Campbell University Astronomical Society and Chemistry and Physics Department is hosting a viewing event with top of the line telescopes for the public Wednesday evening.
According to Jason Ezell, an Assistant Professor of Physics at the University, you can see the planet Saturn as its famous rings shrink due to the Earth passing through their orbital plane.
Have questions about the weather and how it works?
Send me an email with the subject line 'Ask the Meteorologist:' to cmichaels@pugongyingbo.com.