At Its Nearest to Earth In Almost 20 Years, Supermoon Gets a Closeup
Monday, March 21, 2011 - 11:32
in Astronomy & Space
Super Perigee Moon NASA Anyone with clear skies Saturday night saw a spectacular swollen moon, 14 percent bigger and 30 percent brighter than our satellite usually appears. Photos abound from amateur and professional photographers, but we like this picture from NASA, showing a pink-hued moon rising above the Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C. On Saturday, the moon was 221,565 miles away - the closest it's been to Earth since March 1993. It caused higher and lower tides, which apparently led to some minor problems for ships - five vessels were stranded in the U.K. because of sandbars that were exposed in a particularly low tide. But for the most part, the supermoon simply looked superb.