Five things you should know about a supermoon
Posted on 14 November 2016
1. The orbit of the moon around the Earth is elliptical rather than a perfect circle. This means that the moon isn't a constant distance away from us, but instead gets closer or further away as time goes on.
2. A supermoon is as the name suggests - it appears larger and brighter in the sky because it is closest to the Earth during a full moon.
3. Supermoons happen fairly regularly, but tonight (Monday, 14 November) the moon will appear larger than it has since 1948.
4. The supermoon will appear to be about 7% larger and 16% brighter than an average full moon.
5. The next time a full moon will be this close to earth will be in 2034.
For more information about Astrophysics at York visit: https://www.york.ac.uk/physics/astrocampus/