Wishing you a grand first day of summer today and clear nights ahead. This weekend we’ll see the full moon dangling like heavy fruit low in the southern sky. If it looks a tad bigger than last month’s Full Flower Moon, it really is. The moon reaches perigee – closest point to Earth in its orbit – at 6:11 a.m. CDT Sunday morning June 23 just a half hour before the moment of full moon. At the same time it will hover in front of the Milky Way’s central supermassive black hole.
With all those superlatives, you might think I’m setting you up for the end of the world. Trust me, I’m not. The full moon is near the same spot every June and perigees are almost as common as dandelions.
The moon follows an elliptical path around the Earth with one side of its orbit some 31,000 miles (50,000 km) closer (perigee) to our planet than the other side (apogee). Since the moon orbits the Earth every 27 days it reaches perigee once or sometimes twice a month.
So what makes this one special? Well, not all perigees are alike. Some are closer than others and occur at times other than full moon. The closest perigees, like this Sunday’s, occur when the moon is either full or new – times when Earth, moon and sun are all lined up in a row. The sun’s gravity tugs more strongly on the moon at these phases, stretching its orbit and leading to extreme values for perigee and apogee.
No one notices an unusually large first quarter or crescent moon, but we all sit up and pay attention to a bigger-than-normal full moon.
The moon’s most distant perigee (230,000 miles) happened at last quarter phase on March 5 this year. Sunday’s will be the closest of the year at just 222,000 miles (357,000 km). Some keen-eyed skywatchers might notice the moon looking a little larger than it will at apogee on Jan 14, 2014. I say might. Without a reference, it’s terribly hard to compare sizes. The moon illusion, an apparent bloating of our satellite when seen low in the sky, further complicates the view. Still, facts are facts. The moon will be bigger and brighter this weekend than on any other night this year.
Not only does the closest perigee of the year coincide with Full Moon, but the moon will be in the “Teapot” constellation Sagittarius in approximately the same direction as our galaxy’s 4-million-mass black hole. Look toward the moon and you can imagine it there munching its way on gas clouds and stars that pass that pass too close for comfort. Given that the beast is 26,000 light years (156 quadrillion miles) from us, neither moon nor monster have any gravitational inkling of the other.
Since full phase happens early Sunday morning, the moon will appear full to the eye both Saturday and Sunday nights. I hope you’ll get to enjoy the show.