On the night of August 30-31, 2023, a very rare phenomenon can be seen in the sky: the blue supermoon. What makes a supermoon so special? And why did this moon suddenly turn blue?
What is a supermoon?
Every month, the moon revolves around the earth. Because the moon is illuminated by the sun, we see the moon in different phases. So you also see the full moon every month. But sometimes you see an incredibly large moon hanging in the sky, as if it had grown up. How is this giant moon formed?
And the Moon is very far away, usually about 384,000 kilometers from Earth. Generally? Yes, because the moon does not revolve around us in perfect circles. Because of its elliptical orbit around the Earth, the Moon sometimes gets very close to the Earth. Only up to 357,000 km. It still seems far, but it saves nearly 30,000 km. So a supermoon is simply a very big moon, because it is much closer to Earth.
Why is this supermoon a blue moon?
The supermoon in August 2023 is very special: the blue supermoon. But it’s not blue. The name does not refer to the color of the moon, but to the time of its appearance. The second full moon in a month is called the blue moon. This is not unusual, because it takes the moon 29.5 days, just under a month, to complete its cycle.
Once in a blue moon
Why do we call this second moon blue, and not green? This is not entirely clear. It may have started after the rare blue-tinged moon when the Krakatoa volcano in Indonesia erupted in 1883. This is probably where the English expression came from. Once in a blue moon from, which means “very rarely”‘. A blue moon is not uncommon: this phenomenon occurs every two to three years. But the super blue moon we don’t see very often. Next opportunity is not before January-April 2037.
Will you also sleep really badly with a huge full moon? And does the full moon give more light, too?
