New Year's Supermoon: 2 In January, Plus Blue Moon, Lunar Eclipse USA news

junaidmusheer (28)in #lunareclipseusabadnews • 7 years ago (edited)

New Year's Supermoon: 2 In January, Plus Blue Moon, Lunar Eclipse

The New Year's Day supermoon will light up snow covering much of the northern half of the United States, making for stunning photographs — if you can stand to be outside during an Arctic blast that has plunged the Plains, Midwest, South and East into a record-shattering territory. If you miss it, there's another chance to experience a supermoon this month — on Jan. 31, and it will be extra special because it also is a "blue moon," the handle given to the second full moon in a month. And, if you're in the right place, you'll see a total lunar eclipse on the last day of the month, too.

The Jan. 1-2 supermoon is the second in a trilogy that began on Dec. 3. If local weather conditions allow, the best time to see it is around 9:24 p.m. on the evening of Jan. 1.
Supermoons aren't really larger and brighter than other moons, but they appear so because they're closer to the Earth in their orbit. As NASA explains it, because the moon's orbit is elliptical, one side (apogee) is about 30,000 miles farther from Earth than the other (perigee). Nearby perigee full Moons appear about 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than full moons that occur near apogee in the moon's orbit.

"It's hard for our eyes to distinguish these small changes in size when the moon is high amidst the vastness of the night sky," NASA said on its website. "But any time you catch a full Moon as it rises or sets, while it's suspended low on the horizon beaming through the silhouettes of trees or buildings, its apparent size might make you do a double-take.