(KNSI) – If you look closely, you just might see a cape in the night sky. Tonight and tomorrow it’s a supermoon! It officially occurs at 2:37 p.m. Wednesday. Saint Cloud State University Assistant Professor of Meteorology and Planetarium Director Rachel Humphrey explains what is required to turn a full moon into the super variety.
“What a supermoon is, is when there is a full moon phase coincident with a perigee, which just means when the moon is closest to the earth in its orbit around us,” she says.
Humphrey points out that the moon’s orbit is elliptical and slightly shorter than the lunar phase cycle. This causes supermoons to cluster together.
“There is going to be a series of four of them each year from now until 2025, I believe.”
Many of those will happen in consecutive months. The lunar cycle, as the moon waxes and wanes, is 29.5 days. The orbit, or one trip around the earth, takes roughly 27 days.
Humphrey says the term supermoon was coined in the late 1970’s. It seems to have gained interest and popularity among the general population only in recent years.
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