Watch the Spectacular Supermoon and Perseid Meteor Shower This Weekend! Send in Your Photos

This weekend may be your chance to see one of the most spectacular moons of this year. On the evening of Sunday, August 10, you'll get an opportunity to see the most super of "supermoons" of 2014.

"Supermoon" is actually a relatively new term. It first made its appearance in the media in a 1979 article for Dell Horoscope magazine, according to Astronomy. At the time, the author described it as "a New or Full Moon which occurs with the Moon at or near (within 90 percent of) its closest approach to Earth in a given orbit."

While the term "supermoon" has peppered the media, though, astronomers prefer "perigee full moon." The fact of the matter is that these occurrences aren't all that rare. It's essentially the alignment between a full moon phase with perigee, which is its shortest distance from Earth in the roughly month-long lunar cycle, according to National Geographic. In fact, supermoons occur every year.

That said, this weekend's full moon should be especially spectacular. Because the moon will be at its closest approach to Earth for 2014, at a mere 221,765 miles away, the moon will appear to be 16 percent larger and 30 percent brighter than normal. In fact, the perigee will occur just 26 minutes before the moon officially reaches its full phase. This perfect timing won't occur again until the year 2034.

That said, this isn't the only supermoon you'll see this year. One appeared in July and the next one is scheduled for September 9. That said, the one on Sunday should be the largest of the three.

It's not only the supermoon that you have to look forward to, though. The Perseid meteor shower is also occurring this weekend. Unfortunately, this means that the moon's light will block out many of the "falling stars" from the Comet Swift-Tuttle. Yet it's still possible to catch a few of them as the shower peaks between Aug. 10 and Aug. 13.

Technically, the Perseids should reach their full glory on the evening of Tuesday Aug. 12 into the early morning of Aug. 13, according to NASA. If you're lucky (and the skies are dark enough), you should be able to see about 30 to 40 meteors per hour.

Do you plan to take pictures of the supermoon? How about pictures of the Perseid meteor shower? We'd love to see them. Feel free to submit images to c.griffin@scienceworldreport.com, and we'll put the best ones up on our site.