{"id":351537,"date":"2025-11-03T01:27:10","date_gmt":"2025-11-03T01:27:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/351537\/"},"modified":"2025-11-03T01:27:10","modified_gmt":"2025-11-03T01:27:10","slug":"dennis-mammana-get-ready-to-catch-the-largest-full-moon-of-the-year-outdoors","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/351537\/","title":{"rendered":"Dennis Mammana: Get Ready to Catch the Largest Full Moon of the Year | Outdoors"},"content":{"rendered":"

How far is the moon<\/a>?<\/p>\n

I\u2019ll bet that many of my readers know the answer; we all learned it in school. In fact, I still recall reciting it in fifth grade: \u201cThe moon is 240,000 miles from Earth<\/a>.\u201d<\/p>\n

What the teacher never told us, however, is that this number is just a rough average, and that there is no single answer.<\/p>\n

That\u2019s because the moon doesn\u2019t orbit the Earth in a circular path; if it did, its distance would always be the same.<\/p>\n

It orbits, instead, along an elliptical path, and its distance from us changes throughout its monthly cycle.<\/p>\n

Scientists can measure the moon\u2019s exact distance by bouncing a laser beam from reflectors installed on the moon decades ago by Apollo astronauts.<\/p>\n

What do I mean by the moon\u2019s \u201cexact distance\u201d? Well, these laser ranging measurements can yield the lunar distance to an accuracy of less than 2 millimeters or one-13th of an inch!<\/p>\n

To most of us, however, that\u2019s overkill. We simply enjoy watching the moon as it lights our nighttime sky and, on Wednesday, Nov. 5, we\u2019ll have a great opportunity to see a unique full moon rise in the east at dusk.<\/p>\n

On that evening, the moon will lie very near its perigee position (its closest orbital point to our planet), only about 221,726 miles away, so you may notice that it appears slightly larger than normal.<\/p>\n

It will, in fact, be the closest, brightest and largest-appearing full moon of 2025.<\/p>\n

This lunar perigee occurs every month, of course, but when it happens to coincide with a full moon we frequently hear folks call it a \u201csuper moon.\u201d<\/p>\n

Nothing terribly \u201csuper\u201d about it, really. On that evening, the moon will appear only 7% larger than an average full moon, and this isn\u2019t terribly much.<\/p>\n

Imagine leaving a 7% tip to a restaurant server. \u2026 Do you suppose they\u2019d get excited and exclaim, \u201cOh, what a super tip!\u201d? It\u2019s doubtful!<\/p>\n

Even regular moon-watchers may struggle to notice the size difference, but keep in mind that some of the moon\u2019s \u201chugeness\u201d you see may be caused by a confused brain trying to sort through what we call the moon illusion.<\/p>\n

When the moon appears near the horizon, our brain interprets it as being farther away and, therefore, expects that its image on our retinas should be smaller.<\/p>\n

Since its image is not smaller (because the moon is not actually farther) the brain assumes that the moon must have grown in size, and very effectively shows us a larger moon.<\/p>\n

Check out the moon again later in the evening when it lies high overhead and you\u2019ll see that it now appears a bit smaller.<\/p>\n

Of course it isn\u2019t; it\u2019s just that when it lies high in the sky, there\u2019s no horizon in the foreground to help our brains create the illusion, and the moon appears to be a normal size once again.<\/p>\n

Be sure to mark your calendars for Wednesday, Nov. 5, and get out after sunset to watch the full moon ascend over the eastern horizon.<\/p>\n

Whether or not you see it as larger, the rising full moon is always stunning!<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"How far is the moon? I\u2019ll bet that many of my readers know the answer; we all learned…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":351538,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[24],"tags":[4514,2824,159,783,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-351537","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-space","8":"tag-astronomy","9":"tag-outdoors","10":"tag-science","11":"tag-space","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/115483170878959247","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351537","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=351537"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/351537\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/351538"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=351537"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=351537"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=351537"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}