A cosmic feast.
Alright stargazers, this one’s for you.
This week there’s going to be a pink super moon gracing the skies, marking the first of two super moons in 2021.
In Australia, if you look to the sky on Tuesday, April 27, you’ll be able to see the glorious pink super moon, which funnily enough, isn’t actually pink. The name comes from the pink phlox, a beautiful flower in the US that blooms around the same time as we see the moon.
Despite the fact you won’t be seeing rosey tones up in the sky, the super moon will be bigger and brighter than anything we’ve seen in recent times due to the moon being in perigee (aka when it’s closest to the Earth).
For us in Australia, the moon will be at its fullest at 1:31pm on 27 April. While not the best time to be moon-gazing, the good news is that the moon will appear brighter and bigger than usual all night long, allowing plenty of time to sneak a peek at the rare occurrence. As for the moonrise and moonset times, in Melbourne it will be between 5:53pm and 7:51am.
While super moons are pretty rare, usually only occurring once every year or so, 2021 is really turning around and gifting us two super moons. The second will be visible on Wednesday, May 26 and will be a total lunar eclipse that will turn into a super blood moon that will have a unique reddish colour to it. The eclipse begins at 6.47pm AEST and will peak at 9.18pm so pop that one in your calendar.
Obviously, the visibility of both the pink super moon and the super blood moon are both dependent on clear skies so fingers crossed it all falls in our favour.
You can read more about supermoons via NASA.
