Super Moon Tonight: The Moon closer to the world by 15-30 per cent

Tonight your eyes will not be fooling you. Yes, the moon will look bigger and it's called the Super Moon. In a Nasa press release, Geoff Chester of the US Naval Observatory in Washington DC said, "The last full Moon so big and close to Earth occurred in March of 1993. I'd say it's worth a look."

NASA predicts the ‘super perigee moon’ will appear 15 to 30 percent larger than normal. Optimal viewing time, experts say, is just after sunset, when the glowing orb hangs just above the horizon, creating an optical illusion that makes its size appear even greater (an effect known as the “moon illusion”).
The moon, which measures a constant 3,474 kilometers across, isn’t actually changing size. Instead, the moon appears so large because it is at the “perigee” point in its orbit around earth, the closest point in the orbit’s ellipses.

The moon became perigree at roughly 3pm EST today, at that point the moon was a mere 221,565 miles from our planet, about 31,000 miles closer than normal. (The moon’s furthest point in its orbit is known as “apogee.”) In addition, the moon became officially a full moon just an hour before hitting becoming perigree — a rare event that creates a stunning visual.

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