31 August 2023
TOPEKA (KSNT) – An event is taking place in the sky Wednesday night and it’s not a firework show. It’s a rare event that involves the moon.
The full moon will appear twice in the same month and it has no astronomical significance. Instead, it’s just the luck of the calendar.
“If it happens say on the 1st, 29 days later we’ll see another full moon,” Brenda Culbertson said, a NASA Solar System Ambassador. “So, if a full moon occurs in the middle of the month, we’ll see just one. It’s just a timing of the orbit.”
What makes this Wednesday night event even more rare is how close it will be to our little blue planet.
“Tomorrow night’s moon is not just a blue moon,” Culbertson said. “It’s also a Super Moon. It is the closest point to Earth that the moon will get this year.”
Because of this, the moon will appear more than bigger.
“There will be a larger area illuminated by the sun from our perspective,” Karen Camarda said, a Washburn University Physics Professor. “And so it will definitely appear brighter.”
Just because it’s called a “Blue Moon”, don’t expect to look up at the sky and see it appear as a different color.
“The moon will, color-wise, appear just like it always does,” Camarda said. “It’s not going to be blue. A Blue Moon is just what we call the second full moon in a month.”
The next time we will see a pairing of Blue Supermoons will be in 2037.