Very recently there has been a lot of talk in the news about a special Lunar event that is taking place this weekend. It's called a Supermoon and was first coined by Astrologer Richard Nolle over thirty years ago.
So what is a Supermoon? The Moon's orbit around the Earth is not perfectly circular and so at certain times in its orbit it is at it's closest to the Earth (perigee - 354,000 km [220,000 mi]) and at other times furthest away (called apogee - 410,000 km [254,000 mi]). So a Supermoon is when the Moon is within 90% of it closest ever approach in its orbit and coincides with a full Moon, this is called perigee-syzygy. However due to the nature of the orbit we dont get a Supermoon every month but it does happen quite often.
The notion of a Supermoon is steeped in superstition and conspiracy; all sorts of natural disasters, earthquakes, erupting volcanoes etc... have been attributed to this natural occurence. Apart from unusually high and low tides there has been no empirical evidence to prove that any natural disaster has been caused by a Supermoon, past or present. In fact the tragic Japan Earthquake occured a week before the Moon's closest approach.I find that people believe what they want to believe so it sometimes doesn't matter what the scientists say to alleviate concerns only that the media makes it good reading! In any case it fires the public imagination and an increased number of people observed the full Moon last night more than normal.
The next occurence will be November 14, 2016.
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