The Moon is currently at its closest point to Earth in its orbit.
There’s a reason the Moon looks so big tonight. It’s because it’s at its closest point to Earth in its orbit. The Moon will reach this point, known as perigee, on October 27th at 6:30 UTC (1:30 pm EDT). At this time, the Moon will be 221,753 miles (356,509 kilometers) away from Earth. This is the closest the Moon has been to our planet since January 26th, 1948.
The Moon’s orbit around Earth is elliptical rather than circular. This means that it can sometimes be closer or further away from us than usual. The distance between the two bodies varies by around 12% depending on where they are in their orbits. However, the distance between them doesn’t always change evenly over time.
Why does the moon look bigger when it’s closer?
When a full moon occurs near perigee, it looks much bigger and brighter than usual and is known as a supermoon or perigean full moon.
This happens because when we view an object that’s close to us with our peripheral vision – which gives us an angle of view of about 120 degrees – we tend to perceive objects as being larger than they really are.
The same thing happens when you’re driving past something with your peripheral vision and you think you’ve hit something but you haven’t.
It’s also why people who wear glasses sometimes complain that their lenses seem too big for their faces – because they’re actually seeing things through a wide angle lens!
