Today you can see the impressive “blue” moon

The August Super Full Moon is a rare astronomical event that happens every 2 or 3 years.

An impressive celestial event this year marks “farewell to August”, the calendar end of summer. Today, Wednesday 30/08, the largest and brightest full moon of 2023, the famous “blue super full moon”, can be seen in the sky. The moon, however, will not be blue, but orange.

In early August, we already managed to admire the unique super full moon. But the “blue moon” on August 30-31 promises an even more impressive sight.

As the Live Science website explains, there are two types of blue moons. August belongs to the first category (“calendar blue moon”), where there are two full moons in one month. This happens roughly every two or three years as a new full moon rises every 29.5 days. According to the website timeanddate, The next blue moon will be visible on May 31, 2026.

The second type of blue moon, called “seasonal blue moon“. This happens when there are 13 full moons in a calendar year instead of 12. The next seasonal blue moon, which also occurs every two to three years, will rise on August 19, 2024.

A “super full moon” is when the moon is at its closest point in its orbit around the earth. The orbit of the Moon is elliptical, so at different times it becomes either closer (perigee) or further (apogee) to the Earth. According to Fred Espenak, an astronomer and former NASA eclipse officer, a moon that is at perigee (or within 90% of perigee), as it does in a given month, is called a supermoon.

The second full moon in August is the third when the Moon will come closest to our planet in 2023. The celestial satellite will be at a distance of 357,344 kilometers from the Earth.

The next full moon, the “Harvest Moon” as it is called, will rise on September 29th. This is not only one of the most famous full moons of the year, but also last super full moon of 2023.

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