Supermoon- the biggest moon comes closest to the earth in 18 years| Why does Supermoon occurs?

The term ‘Supermoon’ was 1st coined by Richard Nolle, Astrologer, in 1979. He stated, it is a situation when the moon is slightly closer to the Earth in its orbit than average, which is 90 per cent or more of its closest orbit, and the moon is a full or new moon.

SUPER MOON

Regular situations of full moons coinciding with the moon’s closest point to Earth in fact happen after about every one year, one month and 18 days when it is about 3,63,104 km away from the Earth.

The Supermoon will be closest to the Earth in 18 years will be seen in the night sky on 19th March 2011 and will appear to be the biggest and brightest of 2011. The full moon will be at its best at around 3:30 a.m. This full moon will be around 10 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter as compared to other full moons during the year. The moon will be just 3,56,577 km away from the Earth compared to its average distance of 3,84,800 km from the planet, the closest while at the full moon phase in 18 years.

The super moons were occurred earlier in 1955, 1974, 1992 and 2005.

Reason for SUPER-MOON?

This is because the moon’s orbit is an ellipse with one side 50,000 km closer to Earth than the other. In the language of astronomy, the two extremes are called ‘apogee’ (far away) and ‘perigee’ (nearby).