Stop staring blankly into space and stare cosmically into space instead!
This Wednesday, April 8th, cancel all your plans (we know you’ve got heaps on right now) and turn your eyes to the skies to ogle at the sight of the super pink moon.
Prime viewing time will be around 11pm, when the moon is high in the night sky, but it’ll appear largest earlier in the evening when it’s close to the horizon (although this is merely but an illusion).
What the heck is a super pink moon anyway?
Well for one thing, it’s not actually pink (sad face) but so named because of the time of year it occurs. It’s spring time in the northern hemisphere, and pink moss aka phlox, are the first flowers starting to blossom. Way up there, the April full moon is always called the ‘pink moon’ after the first bright blooms.
As for a super moon, that occurs when a full moon aligns with what astronomers call ‘perigee’, meaning that the moon is closest to earth in its orbit. This month, it’ll be a meagre 356,907kms away! You could almost reach out and touch it.
There are usually about two super moons a year, with the last one happening a few weeks ago in March. But the next isn’t scheduled to arrive until April 2021, so don’t muck around and miss this! Who knows how the world could’ve changed by then.
Super pink moons are best viewed from your balcony or backyard. Failing that, you could always check out the view in Rome, live-streamed by the Virtual Telescope Project.
Feature photo by @jonharris_photography
