Super Moon June 23rd 2013 Explained

The biggest and brightest full moon of the year graces the sky early Sunday as our celestial neighbor swings closer to Earth than usual for the June 23,2013 Super Moon.

While the moon will appear 14 percent larger than normal, sky watchers won’t be able to notice the difference with the naked eye. Still, astronomers say it’s worth looking up and appreciating the cosmos.

“It gets people out there looking at the moon, and might make a few more people aware that there’s interesting stuff going on in the night sky,” Geoff Chester of the U.S. Naval Observatory said in an email.

Some viewers may think the super-moon looks more dazzling, but it’s actually an optical illusion. The moon looms larger on the horizon next to trees and buildings.

The moon will come within 222,000 miles (357,000 kilometers) of Earth and turn full around 7:30 a.m. EDT (1130 GMT), making it the best time to view.

As in any super-moon event, high tides are forecast because of the moon’s proximity, but the effect is expected to be small.

This year’s closest and largest full moon will occur on June 23 at precisely 7:32 a.m. eastern. Astronomers call this sort of close full moon a perigee full moon. The word perigee describes the moon’s closest point to Earth for a given month. Two years ago, when the closest and largest full moon fell on March 19, 2011, many used a term we’d never heard before: supermoon. Last year, we heard this term again to describe the year’s closest full moon on May 6, 2012.