Dubai: The second supermoon of August will rise Thursday night, and it is bigger than the last one.
The moon will be even closer the night of August 31 — a scant 222,043 miles (357,344 kilometres) distant. Because it’s the second full moon in the same month, it will be what's called a blue moon.
The Al Thuraya Astronomy Center, Mushrif Park is holding a paid two-hour viewing session for the public which will include an explainer talk, telescope viewing and a photography session through the telescopes.
A supermoon exceeds the disk size of an average-sized moon by up to 8 per cent and the brightness of an average-sized full moon by some 16 per cent. This year’s first supermoon was in July. The fourth and last will be in September. The two moons in August are closer than either of those.
The last time two full supermoons graced the sky in the same month was in 2018. It won’t happen again until 2037, according to Italian astronomer Gianluca Masi, founder of the Virtual Telescope Project.
