The full moon on March 19, 2011, the biggest one seen in almost two decades, brightened this Saturday night sky. The moon, according to experts, was bigger and brighter than regular full moon, thus having it called ‘supermoon’.
The supermoon made its closest approach to Earth. It was at perigee, its closest point to Earth – only 221,565 miles away. The last time the full moon coincided with an extreme perigee was on March 8, 1993, according to NASA.
The March 19 supermoon, as it’s called, was pretty much visible any time last night, as relayed by Geza Gyuk, an astronomer at the Adler Planetarium in Chicago.
“Though the supermoon was about 20 percent brighter and 15 percent bigger than a regular full moon, the visual effect was subtle,” added Anthony Cook, astronomical observer for the Griffith Observatory in Los Angeles. “I doubt that most people will notice anything unusual about this full moon,” Cook said. “Because the total amount of light is a little greater, the biggest effect will be on the illumination of the ground—but not enough to be very noticeable to the casual observer.
Inset is a picture of the supermoon taken over Dallas downtown.
