The last supermoon can be admired on Thursday night

The full moon will be on Friday, August 12, and at 3:36 am, the current time will be 361,409 km from Earth. That’s relatively close, but there is debate over whether it’s close enough to talk about a giant moon.

The term giant moon was coined by American astrologer Richard Noll in 1979 and defined this phenomenon as: “A new moon or full moon occurs within its closest (or within 90 percent of its nearest point) to Earth in a certain orbit (perihelion). Briefly , the Earth, the Moon, and the Sun are all aligned, with the Moon closest to the Earth.”

In other words, a supermoon occurs when a new moon or full moon—or roughly, within 90 percent—coincides with the moment the moon is closest to Earth. On each new or full moon, the Earth, Moon, and Sun are aligned.

Fred Aspink

The problem is that Knoll did not specify a “specific job” and did not explain why he chose 90 percent as a margin. Because of this ambiguity, astronomers often base their identification of giant moons on data from American astrophysicist Fred Espinak, who has worked at NASA for more than 30 years and is also known for his eclipse predictions.

Fred Espenak compiled lists of perigee, apogee, and lunar phases to identify future supermoons. Perigee is the closest the moon reaches in one complete revolution around the earth. Apogee is the point farthest from the moon. Perigee and existence exist because the moon’s orbit around the sun is not a perfect circle, but an ellipse (ellipse), so the distance between the moon and the earth is not always the same. The average perihelion distance is about 363,000 km from Earth, and the average apogee distance is about 405,500 km.

Thursday night, the full moon will not be at perigee, but it will be at least 90%, calculated by perigee and apogee for August’s “monthly orbit” and not the 2022 “year orbit”, as Nol did. Noll looked at the nearest trough and farthest climax of the year. He took 90 percent of this difference as the basis for measuring the permissible deviation from the gutter.

Espenac made his calculations based on the perihelion and apogee for the month in question and the distance from the full moon for that month. This explains why in the Espenac tables of May 16, 2022 and August 12, 2022 we find giant pyramids, while these dates were not preserved by Nolle.