The moon, bright enough to light up otherwise dark nights, appeared bigger in size on Tuesday night. Supermoon, as they are called by astronomers, delighted sky-watchers on Earth as it came to its closest point of approach to our planet.
As the moon orbits around the Earth in its elliptical path, it can come as close as 3.57 lakh km and go as far as 4.05 lakh km. The moon appears big and bright in the sky when it is close to the Earth. The average distance from the moon to Earth is 3.84 lakh km
The moon is egg-shaped, not circular and when it orbit around the planet Earth, it passes through phases. As visible in the sky, the moon changes its shape from crescent to quarter to gibbous to full and then goes back gibbous to quarter to crescent to new.
Since February is associated with heavy snow fall in Europe and America, the Supermoon that appeared in the month gets its name Super Snow Moon or Hunger Moon. There are other names like Storm Moon or Ice Moon for the February supermoon.
