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A “super Harvest Moon” is supposed to occur on the night of September 29 to 30, 2023. Behind this poetic formula, what does it really mean on a scientific level?
Poetry and astronomy sometimes go well together. Think of the famous “ Pillars of Creation ” to the ” Tarantula Nebula » or to this sublime photo of a kind of cosmic hourglass. But sometimes the enthusiastic descriptions turn out to be a tad excessive. Moreover, this often concerns the Moonwhen it enters a particular phase.
We speak of a full Moon when the natural satellite is opposite the Sun in its orbit around the Earth. His face is then fully illuminated.
It turns out that the Earth’s natural satellite will find itself in a very particular configuration on the night of Friday September 29 to Saturday September 30, 2023. This will be the full Moon, a sequence to which all kinds of beliefs and legends are historically linked. But it’s also a moment when superlatives are dropped a little too easily.
A “super Harvest Moon” around the Earth?
In this little game, we often find the American space agency. NASA, moreover, describes tonight’s full moon like a ” Harvest Moon » (“ harvest moon ”, in English), because it is “ the full Moon closest to the autumnal equinox », which took place on September 23. “In many cultures, holidays and festivals are linked to the Harvest Moon,” the agency adds.
It turns out that this is not its only characteristic in 2023. The Harvest Moon is also a “super Moon”, says the American space agency. In short, it is a “super Harvest Moon”. It’s quite poetic, like many other names that we sometimes give to the Moon (full moon of the wolf, strawberries of the beaver, pinkof the hunter, blueetc.), but that doesn’t make sense.
The expression of super moon comes from the fact that the satellite’s orbit is not perfectly circular around the Earth. As a result, it is sometimes a little bit closer. The supermoon refers to the time when a full moon occurs when it is at its closest point.
It is all the more absurd to talk about a super Moon, given the astronomical reality that will play out tonight. Indeed, its only merit is that the satellite will, by NASA’s own admissionappear about 5% larger and 13% brighter than an average full moon in 2023. It is perhaps excessive to call it super.
This is not the first time that NASA has done this: Super Deer Moon, of snow, sturgeon, of blood, flowers, blackworm, deer, cold… We no longer count, or almost, the terms associated with the satellite, to describe certain particular appearances of the star, but which have no scientific importanceand which sometimes are just a banal optical illusion.
That being said, two merits must be given to this type of presentation: first, it attracts the public’s attention and encourages them to be interested in the Moon. This is a good opportunity to try to observe it (and it is possible to examine the Moon with the naked eye, but also with binoculars or an astronomical telescope). And finally, it’s a good opportunity to take some nice photos.
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