The biggest full moon of the year, dubbed a “pink supermoon,” will occur Tuesday, April 7. It’s the closest the moon will be to the earth for the rest of the year.
Tim Swindle, who heads the University of Arizona Lunar and Planetary Laboratory, said the moon will be at its closest point in its orbit around Earth — its perigee — at 11 a.m. Tucson time Tuesday, but it won’t be visible then since it will be daylight.
“At 7:35 p.m. here the moon will be exactly full as it will be opposite from the sun in its orbit,” Swindle said, according to UA news release. “And since it’s a full moon, it will rise right around sunset, 6:38 p.m., with sunset occurring at 6:47 p.m., to be exact.”
While it’s called a pink supermoon, the moon won’t actually appear pink. According to the Farmers’ Almanac, the full moon in April was so named because it often rose when meadows were painted with swatches of moss phlox, a pink wildflower native to eastern North America, during its early springtime bloom, according to the news release.
Because the moon’s orbit around Earth is not a perfect circle but slightly elongated, its distance from earth is not always the same.
On average, about 238,855 miles lie between earth and the moon.
During a supermoon, the moon can be almost 30,000 miles closer.
In a typical year, there can be three or four supermoons in a row, either full moons or new moons, according to NASA.
