Srinagar: Dictionary says to do something “once in a blue moon” is to do it very rarely. Yes, today is the opportunity to see “blue moon” in its proverbial sense – “once in a blue moon”!
What’s rare is that Wednesday night is the occasion to see a supermoon, one of the largest and the brightest moon of 2023.
A supermoon is so named because the moon appears much larger in the sky when it is full and is closest to Earth. Interestingly, it is the second full moon in the month of August, following the first on August 1.
And that’s exactly what’s the definition of a blue moon. Blue moon refers to the appearance of a second full moon within a calendar month – as has been the case this August – and it actually happens about every 32 months. See this is what makes it rare – the blue moon thing!
The Blue Moon will be at its brightest about 9:30 p.m. (IST), while the Blue Super Moon will be at its brightest around 7:30 a.m. (IST) on August 31.
So set up the alarm of your phone or clock early next morning – sometime before 7:30 a.m. if you don’t want to miss having the glimpse of the super blue moon.
As per NASA’s Earth’s Moon website “about 25 percent of all full moons are supermoons, but only 3 percent of full moons are blue moons”
“The time between super blue moons is quite irregular ― it can be as much as 20 years ― but in general, 10 years is the average. The next super blue moons will occur in a pair, in January and March 2037,” as per New York Post.
Mind it, a blue moon has nothing to do with the colour of the Moon. NASA defines it as the second full moon in a single month. “Once in a blue moon” occurs every two-and-a-half years on average.
A supermoon is a full Moon that occurs when the Moon is at perigee, its closest distance to the Earth. The Moon appears 14 percent larger than the “micromoon”, when the Moon is furthest away from Earth on its elliptical orbit, according to London’s Natural History Museum.
The supermoon also casts 30 percent more light on Earth compared to the dimmest full Moon, reported New York Post.
