The last supermoon of 2023 will rise above the UK tonight

After a bit of contention, tonight’s full moon will be the last supermoon of the year.

While the full moon reached its peak in the UK at 10.57 am today, according to the Royal Observatory, Greenwich, you’ll have a better chance of seeing it after sunset.

With skies across much of the country expected to be clear tonight, it should be a great opportunity to spot a full moon that may appear larger and brighter than normal.

‘Supermoons’ take place when a full moon coincides — or comes close to coinciding — with the moon’s ‘perigee’: the point in its orbit where it’s closest to Earth.

The moon’s orbit is elliptical, swinging between 253,000 and 226,000 miles away from our planet over a month. On Thursday, it will be around 223,600 miles from the Earth’s centre when it passes the meridian.

Astronomers would call full moons that take place on or around the closest point of orbit ‘perigeal’, or even an example of ‘perigee syzygy.’ But these terms aren’t quite as catchy as 1970s-coined ‘supermoon’.

‘The coming full Moon will be larger than average, but it will not be the largest full moon of the year – that was at the end of August,’ said Dr Noah Petro, project scientist for Nasa’s Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter mission.

‘Unfortunately, there are several definitions of a super moon. We tend to view the one biggest as being “the” super moon. By other definitions it is a super moon, but those can have three or four super moons a year.’

However, super or not, one thing we know for sure about this week’s event is it will be called the Harvest full moon.

No points for guessing why it was given that name – the Harvest moon is the full moon closest to the autumnal equinox, marking the start of the new season and the time during which the summer’s crops are gathered. 

This important full moon will set the stage for the next new moon, featuring an annular lunar eclipses occur when the Moon travels through the Earth’s full ‘umbral’ shadow.

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