According to Professor Chandana Jayaratne, the full moon today will be a rare’supermoon’ and a blue moon.
The moon will be 14% bigger and 30% brighter than some of the previous full moons since this full moon will occur when the moon is closest to Earth in its orbit, according to Professor Jayaratne.
“When the moon is full while it is near its closest approach to Earth, it is called a Super Full Moon or a Supermoon. On August 31, 2023 at 7.05 a.m., the moon will be closest to the Earth with a distance of 357,344 kms. It won’t get any closer to us until November 2025. The size and brightness of the full moons on poya days vary slightly from month to month because of the non-circular but elliptical shape of the moon’s orbit around the earth with the closest distance of the moon to the earth (“perigee”) being about 50,000 kms closer than the furthest distance (“apogee”),” he added.
“When two full moons fall on the same month the second full moon is called the blue moon. This is just a name and the moon actually does not appear in blue.
