Why Tonight’s Super Blue Moon is Rare

August’s full moon isn’t just any full moon, or even just any supermoon. 

It’s a Super Blue moon.  But what is that?

A full moon occurs, on average, every 29.5 days, when the moon is opposite the sun in its orbit around earth.

The moon’s orbital path isn’t a perfect circle, though.  for this reason, sometimes the moon is closer to us, and other times it’s further away.

When the moon is at its closest point to earth in its orbit, that’s called perigee. 

When a full moon occurs when the moon is at perigee, that moon is called a supermoon.

Supermoons really do appear larger than other full moons, as the moon is about 31,000 miles closer to the earth than when it’s at apogee– it’s farthest point from earth.

On average, the moon is 238,855 miles from earth. 

Supermoons are only 226,000 miles away.

According to NASA, this full super moon will appear 6.2 percent larger and 12.8 percent brighter than average full moons.

Blue moons are the third out of four full moons in a season.  this is special because normally there are three full moons in each season. Some people believe the second full moon of any given month is a blue moon.  But really, the original definition is the third of four in a season.

A super blue moon is rare enough that it only occurs on average once per decade, though we did experience one in August of 2023. 

The next blue super moon will be in January 2037.

Monday’s Sturgeon Moon was technically exactly full at 11:26am on the west coast.  the moon gets its farmer’s almanac name from the native freshwater fish to the great lakes, sturgeon, which are readily caught this time of year.

The moon will rise in the east at 8:02 pm Monday night, and will also appear full to the human eye Tuesday night when it rises at 8:32 pm.