Gaze On Supermoon That Will Come Closest To The Earth On May 25, 2017

The Moon will approach the Earth closer on May 25, 2017. It will certainly appear 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than the normal. The astrologers dubbed this special event as "supermoon."

The word supermoon originated in modern astrology. It is a correlation of a full moon or a new moon, in which the Moon approaches closely to the Earth on its elliptical orbit. This makes the lunar satellite appear bigger as seen from the planet Earth. Its technical name is perigee-syzygy of the Earth-Moon-Sun system. The supermoon event is also linked to the increased risks of occurrences like volcanic eruptions and earthquakes. On the other hand, this link has not yet proven.

So, how close the Moon will be to the planet Earth? The Moon will be about 357, 207 km (221,958 miles) away from the Earth. This will be the first time since 2009 that the centers of the Earth and the Moon will not come nearer than 357,000 km (221,830 miles). It will also be a new moon and not a full moon, according to EarthSky.

The new moon (most nearly between Earth and Sun) will arrive on Thursday (May 25) at about 7:24 p.m. UTC. At lunar perigee, in which the Moon come nearer to Earth, will be on May 26 at 1:23 a.m. UTC.

In the eastern U.S., the Moon will be just over 28 hours past new phase. This means that the Moon will look extremely thin that could just be a mere 2.2 percent illuminated by the Sun. This could be a spectacular sighting. Meanwhile, on May 26, May 27 and May 28, the Moon will move out of the glare of the Sun and into the night sky. Then, it will look as a crescent silver in the west-northwest after the sunset.

The next (full) supermoon will be on New Year's Day, Jan. 1, 2018. It will be less than 400 miles nearer on the planet Earth.