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Photo by Westwood Minute/Darlene Wong Cancell. At 8:00 p.m. on April 26, 2021, a supermoon is rising.
On the Tuesday, August 1, 2023, the full moon will be at its second closest point to earth for the calendar year, and is called a Sturgeon Moon. In the Boston area, the Sturgeon Moon will reach its fullest at 2:31 p.m., although it may be best viewed beginning at dusk and later.
Then on August 30-31, there will be another supermoon as the moon will be both full and at the very closest point to earth for 2023. August’s second supermoon is a blue moon, a name given to the second full moon of a month. Such an event happens about once every three years. The idiom, “once in a blue moon” refers to something not often occurring.
In the moon’s elliptical orbit, its closest point to Earth is the perigee, and its farther point from Earth is the apogee. At a distance of about 225,000 miles from Earth at its perigee, the supermoon will appear larger and brighter than usual.
The first supermoon of 2023 occurred on July 3, and the last one of this year will occur on September 28-29, according to earthsky.org.
Updated 8/1/2023 at 10:09 a.m.
