When the moon hits your eye, like a big pizza pie, that’s a supermoon. The moon on Nov. 14 looked especially large because it was the closest a full moon has been to Earth since 1948. The distance between the moon and the Earth varies due to the moon’s elliptical orbit, and close encounters with Earth are not always in sync with the full moon. Observers saw a moon that was about 7 percent larger than normal and 15 percent brighter, a factor the human eye can barely discern. Still, it was beautiful, and we won’t see another like it until 2034. In the spirit of preserving this magical event, here are some stunning photos from Supermoon 2016:
Soyuz-FG rocket at the Baikonur Cosmodrome in Kazakhstan. Photo Credit: Dmitri Lovetsky/Associated Press
Grand Palace, Bangkok, Thailand. Photo Credit: Sakchai Lalit/Associated Press
An opera house, Hanoi, Vietnam. Photo Credit: Hau Dinh/Associated Press
Philadelphia. Photo Credit: Joseph Kaczmarek/Associated Press
TV Tower, Berlin, Germany. Photo Credit: Markus Schreiber/Associated Press
Filed Under: Aerospace + defense