The largest full moon of 2012 happens this Saturday, but it’s OK if you don’t really notice. The moon doesn’t really get bigger, it just gets closer to Earth.
At 8:40 p.m. Pacific Time on Saturday, according to the Griffith Observatory Sky Report, the moon will be at its closest point in its orbit to the Earth this year. (Accounting for the time zone difference, European moon-watchers will see it Sunday.) To be precise, Earth and moon will be just 221,801 miles apart — more than 17,000 miles closer than average.
NASA’s Science News calculates the moon’s appearance Saturday will be “as much as 14% bigger and 30% brighter than other full moons of 2012.”
Some call what’s known as a perigee full moon a “supermoon.”
via LA Times
“Folklore holds that all kinds of wacky things happen under the light of a full moon. Lunacy (modern word for insanity) comes from the Latin word for Moon.”