April’s full moon will be the largest and brightest of the year, showing up as the first of just two supermoons in 2021.
The rare spectacle occurs when the moon is approaching its closest point to Earth in its orbit, with the following one occurring place almost exactly one month later on 26 May.
The current month’s supermoon will top at 4.31am BST on 27 April, yet will show up full in the sky to casual observers on every day either side.
April’s full moon is traditionally referred to as the Pink Moon by Native American tribes and colonial settlers to the US.
This isn’t a result of its colour– despite the fact that it can seem pink in certain circumstances– but since it concurs with springtime blooms in the northern hemisphere. In particular, the flowering of a type of pink moss called Phlox Subulata happens during this season.
It will be the first supermoon since last May, when the moon passed inside 360,000km (224,000 miles) of Earth. April’s full moon will pass only 357,378km from Earth at its perigee.
The moon’s proximity should imply that it will be possible to view craters and other surface features, even without binoculars or a telescope.
The supermoon will show up considerably greater when it is rising or setting into the great beyond because of an impact called the “Moon illusion”, whereby the eye is tricked into comparing its size with objects inside the line of sight like trees or buildings.
“Because these relatively close objects are in front of the moon, our brain is tricked into thinking the moon is much closer to the objects that are in our line of sight,” explained Mitzi Adams, a solar scientist at Nasa’s Marshall Space Flight Center.
“At moon rise or set, it only appears larger than when it is directly overhead because there are no nearby objects with which to compare it.”
Long reach climate forecasts from the Met Office recommend that late April will be a decent chance for skygazers in the UK to witness the pink supermoon.
The weather service predicts that “fine and dry weather is likely to be more prevalent overall, especially during late-April”.