Missed the super moon on Saturday? Watch it today

If you were wondering why the moon was bigger and brighter last night than most other nights? Here is the answer.

It was the night of the super moon - the day when the moon is closest to the earth. A phenomenon, which experts say occurs once every 18 years.

According to Arvind Paranjpye, incharge, public outreach programme at the city-based Inter-University Centre for Astronomy and Astro-Physics (IUCAA), the phenomenon is nothing but the event of full moon coinciding with the event of lunar perigee, the point when the moon is at its closest to the earth.

Paranjpye told DNA, “The distance between the earth and the moon keeps changing -the farthest point that the moon from the earth is called apogee and perigee is the nearest point. This has been going on since the moon was born abut 4.3 billion
years ago.”

If you missed watching the super moon on Saturday, do not fret.
According to Paranjpye, the moon will be only 1% smaller on Sunday evening.

“Last evening, we saw the moon with about 99.7% of area illuminated by sunlight. On Sunday evening, it would be less by just 1%. The rising moon on Sunday will also be as glorious and will be only 0.6% smaller in size,” he said.