If you’re a fan of astronomy, January is going to be a good month.
According to NASA, a pair of supermoons will appear on the celestial stage in the first month of 2018.
The two supermoons are part of a trilogy, with the first having lit up the sky in early December.
Parts two and three will come on Jan. 3 and Jan. 31, 2018, and if you can only catch one of them, make sure it’s the latter.
It will feature a total lunar eclipse, with totality that will be viewable from western North American across the pacific to Eastern Asia.
A supermoon is a moon that’s full when it’s also at or near its closest point in its orbit around earth.
Since the moon’s orbit is elliptical, one side (apogee) is about 50,000 kilometres farther from earth than the other side (perigee).
Those nearby perigee moons appear about 14% bigger and 30% brighter than full moons that occur near apogee.
“The supermoons are a great opportunity for people to start looking at the Moon, not just that once but every chance they have,” says Noah Petro, a research scientist from NASA’s Goddard Space Flight Center.
To learn more about the many wonders of the moon, visit NASA’s website.
