November full Moon: when to see the last supermoon of 2024
The Moon’s orbit around the Earth is not a perfect circle – in fact it is elliptical, meaning its distance from Earth at any given time will vary.
The Moon’s furthest point from the Earth is known as apogee. When it is at its closest we call it perigee.
And when the full Moon – which occurs roughly every 29.5 days – coincides with the Moon’s perigee, it appears bigger and brighter than usual and so we call it a supermoon.
Supermoons are not particularly rare. In fact there are generally three or four each year. This year has already brought three consecutive supermoons – the Blue moon in August, September’s Harvest moon and the Hunter’s moon in October, which was the brightest of all.
The Beaver Moon will not be quite as bright but it still qualifies as a supermoon.
It will be almost 14,000 miles (roughly 23,000km) closer to Earth than normal, with astronomers saying it will look around 14% larger and 30% brighter than usual – although it may be hard to tell the difference with the naked eye.
The next supermoon does not occur until October 2025 – so it will be worth catching a glimpse of this one if you can.
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