Blue Super Moon to Fill Night Sky Wednesday

(KNSI) – On Wednesday, a super blue moon will appear in the sky, an extremely rare event.

A blue moon is a second full moon in the same calendar month. The lunar cycle is about 29 days, so it shifts forward gradually. A blue moon comes roughly every three years. The next one is in 2026.

Saint Cloud State University Assistant Professor Rachel Humphrey explains what a supermoon is. She says, “Our orbit around the sun is not a perfect circle, right? It’s what we call an elliptical. That is true of the orbit of the moon around us as well. So, sometimes, the moon is closer to us. When that happens, sometimes the moon looks a little bit brighter. So, that’s the super part of the super blue moon.”

The term super moon is traced back to astrology, but scientists and the general public have embraced it in recent years.

It will also have the distinction of being one of the brightest full moons of the year. Humphrey says it all comes down to angles.

“So, the brightest moon is going to be when it is higher above our heads in the sky because there’s less atmosphere that that light has to travel through. It’s the same reason that you should never look at the sun without sunglasses or anything like that during the high part of noon.”

The blue supermoon should appear in the southeast sky at about 8:16 p.m. Wednesday.

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