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Super Moon and Blue Moon

31st January 2018 @ 4:04pm – by Webteam
Back home > News > Moon-gazing
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Hope you saw the rare phenomenon in last night's skies!

Both a 'Super Moon' and 'Blue Moon' were in in our skies, in what some were calling a 'Super Blue Blood Moon'.

It sounds cool, but how excited should we really be and is there anything scientists can actually get out of it?

Leading scientist Prof Tim O'Brien, from Cheshire's Jodrell Bank Observatory, admits to feeling pretty conflicted about all the excitement surrounding the super moon (a term which describes the moon when it is at it's closest point to the Earth). '... It's great that people get excited about astronomy, but the trouble is that a super moon in itself is not really all that special. It should appear 7% bigger and 15% brighter.

A blue moon, on the other hand, is nothing to do with the colour blue, rather it occurs when a full moon happens twice in one calendar month.

But even if you're not a scientist, do go out and have a look. You are likely to see a slightly bigger moon than usual, exaggerated in size by the moon illusion as it rises or sets, and in some parts of the globe appearing dark and red from the lunar eclipse. Perhaps the event could inspire you to take up moon gazing. There's so much to love – such as the shadows of mountains and crater walls at their most dramatic and the incredible feeling of flying across the lunar landscape when you view it through a telescope. As far as I'm concerned, every moon is super ...'.

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