2013 Supermoon Passes Peak, Still Impresses Viewers


While the peak of the 2013 supermoon may have passed, viewers looking out their windows on Sunday night still glimpsed some of the magic.

The supermoon hit the closest point in its eliptical orbit at 7 am EDT and reached full moon status less than an hour later. But while Sunday’s moon is not exactly 14 percent larger in our view than normal, it is still quite beautiful.

Because of the timing of this year’s supermoon, views on Sunday are just as good as those on Saturday evening when your Twitter and Facebook feeds were full of moon photos ranging from decent to (let’s face it) rather poor.

While not everyone had good weather to view the supermoon this year, it was broadcast live on the Slooh Space Camera. Slooh often offers live streams of eclipses, asteroids, and now supermoons throughout the year. This time, the event was streamed from the organization’s observatory in the Canary Islands.

While a supermoon is actually not that rare, as we have one every year, it has still been a chance for people to go outside and relax and maybe even do a little stargazing. Along with creating a beautiful sight, the yearly spectacle also has some myths attached to it.

It is likely that you have heard how people are more crazy during the full moon. I once spent a few hours in the ER during a full moon evening, and the nurse I spoke with even stated how there were more car accidents that day. She, like many others before her, attributed it to the moon’s current phase.

But research has shown this isn’t true. While the myth continues, the supermoon claims are even more interesting. Some have suggested that a supermoon caused the 2011 earthquake and trunami in Japan along with a few other major disasters, which happened around the same time as that year’s supermoon.

Did you get the chance to see the 2013 supermoon? Was it an impressive sight, or were you as unimpressed as some have been by the annual occurrence?

[Image via Twitter]

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