Biggest Full Moon of the Year
Its no illusion some full moons are genuinely larger than others and this Friday's ( December 12th ) is a whooper. The Moon's orbit is an ellipse with one side 50,000km closer to the Earth than the other the two extremes are called "apogee" (far away) and "perigee" (nearby). On Dec 12th the Moon becomes full a scant 4 hours after reaching perigee making it 14% bigger and 30% brighter than a lesser full Moons we've seen earlier in 2008.
The Moon is constantly moving either toward the Earth or away from it and it has a 31,000 mile range between its closest and most distant points way back in May 19th of this year the full moon was at its farthest over a quarter of a million miles away or to be exact 252,472 miles from the earth but on friday 12th it will be 30,885 miles closer only 221,587 miles away. that why it will look larger and brighter plus it will also be the highest riding moon of the year which means that if you go outside around midnight it will close to overhead and act like a gigantic cosmic floodlight making the landscape absolutely brilliant especially if there's snow. But if you miss this closest full moon of 2008 don't worry all you have to do is wait until saturday January 10th for the closest full moon of 2009.