A bright treat will greet skygazers Sunday night.
The first – and final – supermoon of 2017 will begin around 8 p.m. Sunday and reach its perigee at 3:45 a.m. Monday. At that point the moon will be 222,135 miles away from Earth – nearly 16,000 miles closer than it usually is during the year, Space.com reported.
It won’t be quite as bright as the last supermoon on Nov. 14, 2016, when the moon was closer to Earth than at any time in nearly 69 years. That kind of full moon won’t be seen again from Earth until 2034, according to NASA.
Still, Sunday’s supermoon – a nonscientific term that refers to when a full moon coincides with its perigee, the point in its orbit when it makes its closest approach to Earth – should appear larger and brighter than usual.
The next supermoons are on Jan. 2 and Jan. 31, 2018.
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