No, not Michael Moore’s bare backside. The Super Moon of which I write is a lunar phenomenon. A lunar phenomenon that most recently occurred on the 5^th of May, 2012. Whilst us Adelaideans missed out entirely… darn clouds… elsewhere on the planet people enjoyed views such as this…

And this…

And this…

Pretty spectacular, right? Well if you’re like me, you’ll be wondering what exactly makes a ‘Super Moon’, and why have I never heard of this phenomenon until now? Well, let’s start with the basics. The Moon is a cool 384,000 km from the Earth on average. Imagine 3,800,000,000 soft drink cans stacked end to end, 43,400 Mount Everests, or a tower of 1,163,636,363 medium-sized chickens. The Moon is illuminated by sunlight, and is the second brightest celestial body visible in the sky from Earth (after old Helios of course). The angle between the Earth and Moon changes as the Moon orbits the Earth at a rate of one rotation per 29.5 days, which is why its visibly illuminated surface changes shape on a daily (or nightly) basis over the course of approximately one month.

We owe the Moon for a number of important Earthly phenomena. We get to argue over whether the Moon contains a picture of a rabbit or a hand. Cows get to jump over it. Werewolves get to run amok. The word ‘lunacy’ elegantly describes craziness. To an extent, the Moon controls the rate of Earth’s rotation, and is in fact slowing us down by approximately 1.5 milliseconds per century. Not to be trifled with, the Earth is pushing the Moon away at a steady 3.8 cm per year. Theme song: “Ain’t Nothing Gonna Break My Stride”…

You’ll perhaps be aware that the oceanic tides are a result of the gravitational pull of the Moon. You’ll also perhaps be aware that in the movie ‘Bedknobs & Broomsticks’, the words ‘apogee’ and ‘perigee’ are used in a spell to turn a man into a rabbit. Up until I started researching for this article, I thought their only meaning was to bestow mythical powers on fictional characters, but no. Science before magic, always. Now, the Moon’s orbit is elliptical and therefore its distance from the Earth is not constant. When the Moon is at apogee, it is at its furthest possible distance from Earth. At perigee, it is the closest it can be to Earth, and appears larger than it does at apogee. Rightly so, as it’s approximately 50,000 km closer. This is when a Super Moon, or ‘Perigee Moon’ happens.

A Super Moon occurs when the full moon’s appearance at perigee coincides exactly with it lining up with the Earth and sun, causing it to appear 14% bigger and up to 30% brighter. So really, really big and really, really, bright. Unless it’s covered by freaking clouds. Luckily for us geographically/meteorologically challenged, according to NASA, such Super Moons are actually fairly common; we only have to wait 414 days til the next one! The last one occurred in March 2011, but I don’t remember the media being all over it then. Yay priorities!