Last night saw the first of four supermoons for 2024. It reached peak brightness at 9:25 PM. Bulgarian time, novini.bg reported.
The full moon in August is a supermoon - due to the fact that the moon's monthly orbit around the Earth is not a perfect circle, according to “National Geographic".
Each month, the Moon reaches its closest point to Earth, known as perigee. When perigee coincides with a full moon, it is a supermoon. Usually, the supermoon phenomenon only happens three or four times a year and consistently, because of the moon's ever-shifting oval orbit.
This year's "Sturgeon Moon", named after the prolific North American sturgeon family found in the Great Lakes at this time of year, is also a "Blue Moon" due to an astronomical oddity.
There are two types of blue moons: a monthly blue moon (the second full moon in a month) and a seasonal blue moon (the third of four full moons in the same astronomical season). Since the summer solstice, there have been full moons on June 22 and July 21. "The Sturgeon Moon" on August 19 it will be the third, as together with the full moon after it - on September 18 – they will all occur before the autumnal equinox on September 22nd.
Blue moons of each type occur once every two to three years, according to NASA.