Supermoon

The supermoon of March 19, 2011 (right) compared to a more average moon of December 20, 2010 (left), as viewed from Earth

The March 19, 2011 supermoon was 356,577 kilometers (221,566 miles) away from Earth. The last time the full moon approached so close to Earth was in 1993. It was about 20 percent brighter and 15 percent bigger than a regular full moon.

Supermoon over Münster, Germany, 19 March 2011

Supermoon of June 23, 2013 at Umaid Bhawan Palace, India

The geometry of the Moon's orbit in motion, from late May until the supermoon on June 23, 2013.

A supermoon is the coincidence of a full moon or a new moon with the closest approach the Moon makes to the Earth on its elliptical orbit, resulting in the largest apparent size of the lunar disk as seen from Earth. The technical name is the perigee-syzygy of the Earth-Moon-Sun system. The term "supermoon" is not astronomical, but originated in modern astrology.^[1] The association of the Moon with both oceanic and crustal tides has led to claims that the supermoon phenomenon may be associated with increased risk of events such as earthquakes and volcanic eruptions, but the evidence of such a link is widely held to be unconvincing.^[2]

The most recent occurrences were on June 23, 2013, as the closest and largest full moon of the year and the Moon’s closest encounter with Earth for all of 2013, and on Jan. 1, 2014. The next occurrence will be on Jan. 30th, 2014.^[3]

The opposite phenomenon, an apogee-syzygy, has been called a micromoon,^[4] though this term is not as widespread as supermoon.

Definition

The Moon's distance varies each month between approximately 357,000 kilometers (222,000 mi) and 406,000 km (252,000 mi) due to its elliptical orbit around the Earth (distances given are center-to-center).^[5][6][7]

According to NASA, a full moon at perigee is up to 14% larger and 30% brighter than one at its farthest point, or apogee.^[8]

Terminology

The name SuperMoon was coined by astrologer Richard Nolle in 1979, arbitrarily defined as:

...a new or full moon which occurs with the Moon at or near (within 90% of) its closest approach to Earth in a given orbit (perigee). In short, Earth, Moon and Sun are all in a line, with Moon in its nearest approach to Earth.^[9]

Nolle also, wrongly, claimed that the moon causes "geophysical stress" during the time of a supermoon. Nolle never outlined why the 90% was chosen.^[1]

The term supermoon is not used within the astronomical community, which use the term perigee-syzygy or perigee full/new moon.^[10] Perigee is the point at which the Moon is closest in its orbit to the Earth, and syzygy is a full or new moon, when the Earth, the Moon and the Sun are aligned. Hence, a supermoon can be regarded as a combination of the two, although they do not perfectly coincide each time.

Frequency

The full moon cycle is the period between alignments of the lunar perigee with the sun and the earth, which is about 13.9443 synodic months (about 411.8 days). Thus approximately every 14th full moon will be a supermoon. However, halfway through the cycle the full moon will be close to apogee, and the new moons immediately before and after can be supermoons. Thus there may be as many as three supermoons per full moon cycle.

Since 13.9443 differs from 14 by very close to ¹⁄₁₈, the supermoons themselves will vary with a period of about 18 full moon cycles (about 251 synodic months or 20.3 years). Thus for about a decade the largest supermoons will be full, and for the next decade the largest supermoons will be new.

Effect on tides

The combined effect of the Sun and Moon on the Earth's oceans, the tide,^[11] is greatest when the Moon is either new or full.^[12] At lunar perigee the tidal force is somewhat stronger,^[13] resulting in perigean spring tides. But even at its most powerful this force is still relatively weak^[6] causing tidal differences of inches at most.^[14]

As the tidal force follows an inverse-cube law, that force is 18% greater than average. However, because the actual amplitude of tides varies around the world, this may not translate into a direct effect.

It has been claimed that the supermoon of March 19, 2011 was responsible for the grounding of five ships in the Solent in the UK,^[15] but such claims are not supported by scientific evidence.

Natural disasters

Certain prognosticators have moved the goalposts to within 1 or 2 weeks of a supermoon to suggest a causal relationship with specific natural disasters such as the 2011 Tōhoku earthquake and tsunami and the 2004 Indian Ocean earthquake and tsunami.^[16][17] However in both cases the Moon was actually farther from the Earth than average.^[6] No evidence has been found of any correlation with major earthquakes.^[18][19][20]

References

External links

Look up supermoon in Wiktionary, the free dictionary.

• Media related to Supermoon at Wikimedia Commons
• Richard Nolle's definition
• CBC News, Gallery of the March 19, 2011 supermoon, viewed from across Canada
• BBC News, Gallery of shared pictures

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